


Lucky Us

by LivingSol



Category: Beetlejuice - All Media Types, Beetlejuice - Perfect/Brown & King
Genre: Beej will be soft I am warning you now, F/M, Fluff, Minor character death used to further plot, Other, Slow Burn, Stressed!Reader, TW for discussion/reference of non-consensual sexual photography (Chapter 10+ Not in Great Detail), TW for insects/bugs (Chapter 11), The Mature rating is for the later chapters for various reasons, co-worker is an asshole, light tw for a harrassment type situation, overworked!Reader
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-27
Updated: 2020-07-30
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:47:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 131,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23341972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LivingSol/pseuds/LivingSol
Summary: You find out some bad news about your next door neighbor, you weren't expecting anything abnormal to happen the next week as a result. And yet, here you are, with a demon-ghost-whatever in your car on your drive back home. Crazy how that works out.
Relationships: Beetlejuice (Beetlejuice) & Reader, Beetlejuice (Beetlejuice)/Reader, Beetlejuice (Beetlejuice)/You
Comments: 182
Kudos: 309





	1. Bad News (Prologue)

**Author's Note:**

> Hey people, enjoy my first story on this account! I will try to stay on top of it. The story is mostly in third person from your perspective, but Beetlejuice's thoughts will occasionally appear as well, they will be marked in italics to let you know.

It’s not often you answer a call from an unknown number, but today was Saturday, you weren’t doing much, so you figured why not, right? You pick up your vibrating phone from your nightstand as you sit up in bed, placing your laptop off to the side.  
  
“Hello..?” You say into the receiver, fully expecting just another scam call.

You hear a woman’s voice back, she gets halfway through her “I’m so happy I could reach you” when you’re about to hang up, but then you stop as she says a name you know.

“I found you in Joan’s contacts, I wasn’t sure you would answer, but.. I’m sorry I have to be the one to tell you, I have terrible news…” She says back. 

Joan is your next door neighbor, a kind old woman who you help sometimes whenever you’re available. She can’t drive anymore so you usually offer to pick up her groceries for her, and you’ve mowed her backyard countless times. At least, you used to, now that you think about it you haven’t seen her for a while now.

Oh. Oh god.  
The woman on the other end of the phone, who you learn is Margaret, informs you that Joan has passed away, she was taken to the hospital just last week, and after a short battle, she wasn’t able to pull through. You feel tears prick at the corners of your eyes, and you try to keep your breathing even as the woman gives you more details.

“I.. I just saw her… oh god.. I'm sorry you said you were her sister? I’m so sorry for your loss, she was a good friend and neighbor to me, I can’t imagine what you’re going through.” You bring yourself to say, keeping your mouth and mind busy with talking helps you keep from crying as you hold the phone tightly to your ear.

“Thank you for your condolences miss, I'm just glad I was able to say goodbye. I have made my peace, I know she will be in a better place and she won’t be in pain now, so I can let myself be happy for her.” She says back, calmly.  
  
You’ve never heard someone so calm about death, you guess that maybe it isn’t too unheard of, but it isn’t something you have had a chance to come to terms with in your life. Considering you were still in your mid-twenties, your parents were still alive, and most of your grandparents are as well, the grandparents who have passed away died when you were too little to remember. Was it selfish of you to feel so hurt by this? Margaret is still talking as you get lost in thought, you tune back in to hear her offering you a seat at Joan’s funeral, which will be held next week. You feel awkward, considering you aren’t Joan’s family, but you stammer out a yes anyway, pulling your laptop forward and writing down the location and time details she gives you next. After a few more minutes you say your goodbyes and hang up.

Well this Saturday just got a lot darker and heavier than you were prepared for this early in the morning. You close your laptop and leave your phone on the bed as you stand up, looking out of your window towards Joan’s small yellow house next to yours. The lights are off, and you can see her overstuffed mailbox which has been left unattended. You close the curtains quickly, not wishing to start actually crying right now. 

“I’m really going to miss her being around” You think to yourself as you head to your bathroom for a nice shower, one you hope will take your mind off all of this.


	2. The Funeral

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The first actual chapter! I will try to have the chapters be pretty long, that last one was more like a prologue that's why it was so short.

The day of the funeral comes and you arrive at the town’s graveyard to see many people have gathered to mourn Joan. A good amount of them have already taken their seats, you decided to grab yourself a seat in the middle of the back row, that way you can see well but there won’t be any pressure for you to go up and speak. Margaret finds you moments later and takes a seat beside you.  
  
“I’m glad you could make it Y/N.. Our family is rather small, so I wanted as many of her friends to come as I could find. Thank you.” She says gently, resting her hand on your forearm.  
  
“Of course! It is no problem at all.. I’m still just so shocked she’s gone. I haven’t been to a funeral before, so I hope you don’t mind if I just stay back here for the ceremony.” You say back, being honest.  
  
“Oh not at all dear, just your presence is enough!” Margaret reassures you.  
  
You both turn your attention forward as you see someone take a place at the front nearby the coffin. The man there waits for silence before he begins to speak, you quickly learn that is her son. You’ve heard some things about him before from Joan, mostly about the new house he bought with his wife. He was quite a bit older than you, much more ahead in life as well. He welcomes everyone, and thanks us all for being here, before he begins to speak about Joan’s life and her family. You listen intently, clasping your hands together in your lap as you feel the mood of the gathering shift. People were taking time to make conversation before but as the ceremony begins and starts to get serious, kids are hushed and several people bow their heads in respect.

Her son soon trades off, letting another person come up to speak, as they switch places, you notice some movement in the distance behind the people standing at the front near the coffin. Must be some animal in the graveyard or something, you reason, so you ignore it as her family continues to recount happy times with her, even telling a joke that earns a small laugh from the audience. You can tell you weren’t the only one who felt unsure here, and that did help you calm down some. You bring a tissue up to wipe your eyes as her Daughter takes the chance to speak next. Again though, right as the family members were switching places you could have sworn you saw someone walking around behind them.

“Is that someone arriving late?” You think, squinting and leaning to the side to get a better look. It was definitely a man, maybe it could be the groundskeeper.

You are distracted from the speakers as you watch the guy walk up near the family, then go over to a nearby tombstone and lean down to inspect it closely. He’s in some weird striped costume and looks dirty enough to be sleeping on the ground every night. He stands back up quickly after that, stretching his arms above his head and moving closer to the family. Suddenly he goes right in front of Joan’s son who is standing off to the right.

“Why is no one doing something about this homeless guy interrupting the funeral?” You wonder to yourself, about to tap Margaret to see if she can alert someone who works for the graveyard.

The guy waves his hand in front of people’s faces, before he strokes his chin thoughtfully, then suddenly puts his whole arm right through Joan’s son’s chest. There is no reaction, except yours.

You gasp loudly, bringing your hands up to your mouth, a horrified expression showing through. A few people turn their heads to look at you from the different rows of chairs. You quickly play it off as if you were just crying, grabbing the tissue you held earlier and looking down in embarrassment. You wait for them to look forward once more before you pick your head up again, the person speaking in front took no notice of you or of him. You glance back over to where the guy was before, and meet his eyes directly. His stare pierces into you and you can’t bring yourself to look away, his eyebrows shoot way up and he starts to come towards you. You jolt in your chair when you see him move. He isn’t walking.

“What the fuck, what the FUCK??” You internally panic, whipping your head down and staring hard at your lap instead of looking anywhere else.

Last you saw he was floating, literally hovering off of the ground and going through people on a beeline straight for you. You were seriously panicking, and you could feel yourself shaking lightly in your seat. Are you seeing what you think you’re seeing?

“There is no way in HELL--” You start to think before being cut off by a gravelly voice coming from your right.

“You _saw_ me...” He says tentatively.

You don’t dare look over to him, you try to bring your head up as calmly as you can and pretend you are just respectfully listening to Joan’s family like you wish you were right now. You aren’t even religious and you are praying he just leaves you alone, gives up, and doesn’t see right through your attempt at looking casual.

“I know you saw me… can you hear me?” He questions.

You can hear his volume slightly shifting around you, as if he is moving behind you while he talks. You take a steady breath and look unblinking at the woman standing near the coffin, you can’t focus hard enough to retain what she is saying but you try your hardest to look attentive.

“Oh come on living girl, don’t ignore me, there is no way you can’t hear me if you saw me before.” He huffs, jutting his hand out and waving it around in front of you from your left.  
  
You can’t help it, the sudden movement right in front of your face startles you and you jump backwards slightly. Thinking quickly, you bring the tissue up again and make an act of coughing into it, then whispering a hushed sorry to the person on your right who looks over to you. You desperately hope he is buying it, cause you have never taken an acting class in your life and honestly now was the most bizarre time to wish you had.

“Hmm… maybe you didn’t see me afterall…” He says next to you, and you hear his voice trailing as if he was moving away from you. 

You take a slow breath, starting to thank whatever gods there are that you are getting away with this, because you have no idea what you would have done if--

“Boo.” He rasps, popping up right in front of you, sending a wave of cold through you as he flies up and at you from under the ground.

You jump back, squeaking and gritting your teeth together to muffle the yell you want to let out from fear. You can see people turning to you again, you can’t get your mind straight fast enough, you don’t make any move to mask what you just did. You’re staring wide eyed at the faces of these people like a deer in the headlights when Margaret suddenly looks over to you and places her hand on your forearm again. She grounds you enough that you can look to her now, pure distress written all over your face. 

“I understand it’s hard hon, especially since this is your first funeral, if you need to excuse yourself it’s completely fine, none of us will think less of you.” She says softly, barely above a whisper.  
  
By now people have turned their attention forward again, you look into her eyes and see nothing but genuine kindness. You feel instantly better and deeply appreciate her reassurance, it seems like Joan’s family are just really great people.

“Y-yeah.. I think I will, I’m sorry for bothering you, thank you for having me, my condolences again.” You say, trying to keep steady.

You quickly stand, and scoot out, thanking your past self for sitting in the back row. You start to make a brisk walk to your car when you hear him laughing near you, downright cackling.

“Hahhh.. I really got you good babes..That was priceless!” He says after his hard laugh, making a show of pretending to wipe a tear from his eye and everything.  
  
You scowl at nothing as you keep walking, going straight towards your car, not even taking the time to stay on the stone path to the entrance of the parking lot despite the short black heels you wore to match your all black other attire. You reach it before much time and step in, slamming the door behind you as you settle into the driver’s seat. You do regret it instantly however, realizing the sound may have traveled back to those poor people who are just trying to mourn in peace.

You let your shoulders lower as you sink into the seat, your whole body feeling heavy after what happened. You see him phase through the car door to sit in your passenger seat, on top of your coat that you left discarded there when you first arrived. You growl under your breath, leaning over and tearing the jacket out from under him with no effort as he wasn’t actually sitting on it anyway, merely floating above it. 

“So… Where to hot stuff?” He says casually, leaning back with his arms folded behind his head.

You were shaking, you could feel it.

“...So I guess I’ve gone fucking crazy now, is that it?” You ask angrily, not exactly _to_ him but definitely at him.

“Well probably not, but who knows!” he says back, bringing his arms down to shrug in response.

“This is GREAT, just great. I sure did pick an amazing time to start hallucinating. I don’t remember taking any drugs today, ...or yesterday? What the fuck have I done wrong here?” You huff, still just talking into the air, not looking at him.

“I'm not a hallucination babe, I am very much real.” He says back to you very matter-of-factly.

“Oh sure, so what the hell are you supposed to be then, a ghost? In a graveyard no less? My nightmares must have very uncreative story telling! I wish I could WAKE UP already!!” You start yelling, finally looking over to him after you finish.

“Wow, I am HURT. I will have you know that I’m a very creative story teller, it isn’t MY fault that graveyards are the default place I pop up when I travel between two locations. Plus it’s a win win either way, I might meet some newly deads this way!” he says back, mock offense in his tone all the way through.

You groan in response, wiping your hands down your face and looking ahead again. You lean forward and rest your forehead against the top of the steering wheel as you think.

“I can remember waking up and getting ready so vividly… everything felt so _real_ up until this point. But this fucker can’t be telling the truth, there is no way…but, I mean, when I was younger I did always say that ghosts made the most sense for the whole afterlife thing, but that’s just cause religion doesn’t make any sense! Ugh .. shit.. Maybe I should just pinch myself to make sure.” You think, eyes closed in contemplation.

You sit back up after you go through everything in your mind, you take a deep breath, and grab hold of the skin on your forearm with two fingers. You squeeze hard, and you can definitely feel it just as you always would. You let go and heave a deep sigh through your nose.

“Fuck..” You say quietly, rubbing the spot you just pinched, because it hurt but mostly because that means you aren’t asleep for sure.

“See I told you babes, you’re not sleeping. But it’s so cute of you to think you’d see me in your dreams~” He says to you, putting on an overly sweet voice to match his inappropriate comment at the end.

“Okay, well, I guess get on with it then.” You deadpan, facing him again.

“Get on with what?” He questions, scratching the side of his head.

You see a bug fall from his head as he scratches and you grimace before continuing, “I dunno, murdering me or whatever?”  
  
“Oh no no you got me all wrong, I’m not tryin’ to kill ya! I need your help!” He says back brightly, a wide smile appearing on his face.

“...What.” You say back, furrowing your brows in confusion.

“Well see, right now, I can’t affect the world of the living, but _you_ can fix that!” He says excitedly, leaning closer to you.

“Okay.. okay just shut up, stop talking to me.” You say back, turning ahead again.  
  
You see him frown before you reach to get the seat belt wrapped around you, but surprisingly he does listen and stops talking. You jab the key into the ignition and turn, starting the car up and going to back out. You pull out of the graveyard parking, and start towards your house, the radio playing some alternative rock station you left on. You see him enjoying the music beside you as you drive and you let out another deep sigh. Driving does help you calm down a lot though, it is a very mindless task in a way, if you know the trip perfectly, so you can zone out as you move through the relatively empty streets of the town. 

_Man, this broad has no patience at all, I’m surprised she isn’t more afraid than she is angry, but whatever, I’ll take it! Maybe I’ll try to take my time, that might work better for this one. She can try to ignore me if she wants but I’m not gonna give up so easily. Oooh, this is a pretty good song! The sound is really different from the last time I heard a radio but at least it seems like she has some taste ahah_

After a few songs finish you’re getting close to your house, you reach over and turn the music down some before speaking again, “So.. you mean to tell me that you can’t affect our world, but what kind of ghost is that? Isn’t your whole point to haunt people? That doesn’t make any sense.”

“That’s exactly it babe! I _am_ supposed to be haunting people, among other things, and god I would love to. That’s why I need your help!” He says back, turning his attention to you from his seat.

“Well if you’re supposed to be haunting then why can’t you! And what does that have anything to do with me?” You say back, raising your voice slightly.

“Because you’re a living person of course, duh..” He says back, as if this is all so simple.

“Well yeah, but why ME, I don’t know you, can’t you go find someone else?” You say back, losing your patience.

“Cause’ no one can see me, I’m invisible now, no matter what I do no one will respond to me.. Except you! Oh I’m so glad I saw that funeral happening and decided to fuck around with all you breathers, I had no idea it would work out so well for me!” he explains.

“Yeah lucky us, huh?” You say back, sarcasm evident.

Before he can keep going you continue, “What do you mean you’re invisible _now_ , aren’t ghosts always invisible?”

“Oh yeah, usually ghosts are invisible, but I’m not just any ghost! I’m a demon, a humble bio-exorcist, at your service! Usually I would be able to pick and choose when I can be seen by the living, but… well I might have made the wrong people mad, they think I was causing too much trouble in the land of the living. So now I’m stuck like this instead, and it fuckin’ sucks babe.” He answers, gesturing as he speaks. 

You pull up to your house and put the car in park, reaching forward to turn the key to let the engine die down. You can’t believe what you’re hearing. Not just a ghost, no you wouldn’t be so lucky, a _demon_ , has followed you home and you’re just supposed to be helping him all of a sudden. What the fuck did you do in a past life to deserve this level of karma? Should you call someone? The police, some ghost hunters, your mom? You shake your head and grip the steering wheel tightly, then turn to him.  
  
He has dusty green hair that mixes with brown at the roots, he has a scruffy beard that looks like a mix of brown and green too. The side of his face might be growing some kind of moss, and he’s staring at you expectantly, a genuine looking smile aimed your way.

“So what do ya say babes, will you at least hear me out?” He questioned.

Despite everything in your best interest, you are _deeply_ curious. It sounds crazy but if he really is a dead guy like he says then you have so many questions you could ask him! Proof of the existence of life after death, that must come with an insane amount of knowledge! But he is dangerous, he said it himself he was causing trouble, that’s why he’s not able to do anything now. You’d be stupid to help him! Completely, unfathomably stupid. And yet…  
  
“I’ll… Hear you out, for now.” You say hesitantly, in a warning tone.

He all but cheers after you say it, raising his arms up in excitement, “Don’t worry babe, you won’t regret it!”

You have a hard time believing him.


	3. The Hanging Man

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This got longer than I expected lol  
> Enjoy!

It is just another normal day, one like any other, except you’re at home and haven’t changed into your pajamas yet. You also don’t usually hang out in the living room that much, preferring to chill in your bedroom instead. Oh right, and the fact that you are currently sitting cross-legged on the couch with a ghost, can’t forget that part. You decided to let him come in, or rather you came to terms with it, since he could just phase through the wall and come in anyway even if you did say no. A half hour has passed since you made the strange choice to hear him out, so far it was just annoying, because he barely had any straight answers to your questions.

“So you don’t even know why people become ghosts? Nothing about God, Heaven, none of it?” You question him in an irritated voice.

“Not a clue dollface, just cause’ I am one doesn’t mean I understand all the inner workings of the afterlife. God though, now that’s a cool guy! A real pal.” He says casually, sipping loudly on a drink with a bendy straw.

“Seriously? What, have you met him?.. Uh.. them?” You question, curiosity evident in your voice.

“Nope, I’m joking, that guy’s not real.” He says flatly before taking another sip.

You are not disappointed with that though, that is still information you would love to know for sure.

“Oh wow, so there is no hea--” You start but you don’t get a chance to finish.

“Or maybe he is real, I dunno, I’ve never met him if he is.” He cuts in with his raspy voice. 

“Oh my god, you’re useless….Where did you even get that?” You heave a sigh as you speak, distracted by the slurping sound and pointing to his cup.

“Oh this? Nowhere.” He says, snapping his fingers and vanishing the cup right in front of your eyes.

You do a double-take, and he laughs at your reaction as you stammer out, “How did you do that?!”

“Just one of my many powers is all” He says, a sly tone in his voice.

You make a disgruntled face at him and keep talking, “You said you needed my help because your powers are gone, why are you lying then?”

“Well they are, the important ones. I can do little flashy tricks sure, but nothing too big. And without the theatrics what's the point babe?” He replies honestly.

Before you can start asking him something else he continues, “And speaking of my powers! Have you thought about it yet, how about that help huh?”

You roll your eyes at him. This is like the third time he has asked since he came into your house, or maybe it was four, you probably lost count. You are curious though, it was probably some scary ritual, or he would ask you to kill someone or something. He is looking at you expectantly, so you decide to bite, hoping it doesn’t get his hopes up too high, because you weren’t actually going to go through with it or anything.

“Well what do I have to do in order to help?” You reply, resting your head in your left hand lazily.

His eyes light up instantly before he says, “Oh it’s real simple! All you have to do is say my name three times. One, two, and three, spoken unbroken!”

“What? That’s all? How has someone not accidentally helped him by now..” You think to yourself.

Then it dawns on you suddenly that you two had not even been calling each other a proper name this whole time, except you referred to him as  _ guy _ and he insisted on calling you all different kinds of flirty pet names despite your disapproval. You actually have no idea what this man’s name is. You look over to him and you think he can probably see the gears turning in your head after he said that.

“I'm Y/N by the way...You haven’t even told me your name.” You say after a long pause.

“Cause’ I can’t.” He replies in a grumble.

You quirk an eyebrow at him prompting him to continue, “That’s part of the problem, I can’t say it. It’s because of this dumb curse, or punishment, or whatever.”

“Oh, well that’s pretty inconvenient for you then.” You state flatly.

“Yeah no kidding!” He grunts back, falling against the arm of the couch behind him in a huff.

You just look at him in his dramatically draped state, rolling your eyes again. You glance over at the coffee table on your left and the notepad on its surface catches your eye. An idea pops into your head and you reach for it, bringing it into your lap and opening a little drawer on the table to grab a pencil as well. He looks up at the sound of your shuffling and starts watching you gather the materials.

“Whacha got there babe?” He says, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees as he holds up his own head in his hands. 

“A great idea! You ever played hangman?” You reply brightly.

“Oh! I think so, maybe like sixty years back! Or I might have just been watching someone else play… Hard to remember.” He says back excitedly, looking up in thought at the end of his answer. 

_ What is she planning here? Much friendlier all of a sudden, and it seems like she might genuinely be interested in helping me for some reason. My charms must be working! Maybe this’ll be easier than I thought! _

“Okay well, first of all, how many letters are in your name?” You ask, drawing the little layout for the game.

“One, Two, Three… uhh.. Eleven!” He replies with a smile after counting on his finger quietly as if he was a little kid.

“God that’s a lot of letters, that’s all your first name? What about the last name?” You ask again, drawing out the eleven dashes for each letter.

“No that’s my middle name, the other ones don’t really matter.” He waves his hand at you, and you notice he glances away at your question.

“Oh, okay, then I guess we can start!” You say back, pencil at the ready.

“I’d like to buy a vowel!” He shouts suddenly, raising his hand into the air.

“That.. is not this game. Wait, how do you know about the wheel of fortune?” You stutter back.

“I can stay up to date with the current shows! When people leave their TVs on while I’m in their house… Plus Pat Sajak is super hot ya know? You should’a seen him back in the 80’s man, that guy is killer--”

You cut him off with a burst of loud laughter, squinting your eyes shut. He smiles at that, you laugh hard enough to bring a tear to your eye which you wipe away right as it forms. You hate to admit it but this creep is actually really funny. Pat Sajak in the 80’s was just an average looking guy who hosted a TV game show, and now he is the same but older and greyer, which is what makes that remark all the more outrageous. You may not have been alive when most of the episodes aired but you’ve seen the old re-runs before so you remember how he used to look.

“Have you seen him recently? A total  _ silver fox. _ ” You say jokingly, and the ghost in front of you replies by raising his eyebrows and doing a classic cartoon-like wolf whistle.

You don’t even know how that’s possible, but you press on anyway with a smile, “Back to the task at hand! I’ll guess letters, you can tell me if I’m right or wrong, and if I get one you can just point to where they go.”

“Sounds easy enough, okay go!” He says back in a hurried yet excited tone.

“Hmm.. R?” You ask first, he makes a rejection buzzer noise with his mouth somehow instead of answering directly.

“What about Q?” You say next after drawing a circle for a head on the hangman.

“OH! Yeah that’s one…” he says happily, reaching out to start pointing at the notepad, but then retracts, “Wait.. no, sorry that’s not right.”

You look at him with a confused expression before he continues, “Spelling is not my strongest skill..” He says bashfully.

You’re about to suggest calling off this game after finding that out, since it requires spelling, but he pipes up again before you can.

“But I got it now! I just forgot, you can keep going!” He says excitedly, scooting forward closer to you on the couch.

“Okay, well then… what about J?” You ask after nodding in understanding and adding a line for the body of the hangman since Q was wrong.

He gasps and juts his finger out to point at one of the dashes, smiling brightly. You smiled in turn and put a J down in that spot, his excitement was kind of contagious. You go through a few more letters, you manage to fill in an L and a B but got a bunch more wrong. You look at the top of the page with your latest error and realize that you’ve drawn the head, body, arms, and legs already. You pause at that, realizing you’ve technically lost now, you glance up at him and it looks like he has realized it too.

“I didn’t think about losing the game, what are we gonna do now?” He asks, sounding genuinely saddened. 

You think quickly and draw a little face on the guy before saying, “Nope it’s still going, he’s finnee” You emphasize that last bit with a wave of your hand and a dismissing tone.

“Oh I guess they added more chances these days, last I remember you didn’t do anything past his limbs.” he replies in turn.   
  
“Just before you said you couldn’t remember the game though!” You say accusingly.

“It’s all coming back to me.. Like Boomerang.” He says with a laugh.

You question internally whether he means an actual boomerang, or the old school cartoon channel of the same name. You don’t bother asking, and instead press on with more letter guesses. Every time you get another one wrong, you just draw more stuff on the hangman, you start with clothes, then add a little tie, then spiky hair. You’re surprised he hasn’t noticed yet, you’re even able to add pointy teeth and a couple stripes to the drawing before you by chance guess the final letter you need to bring the whole thing together. 

You say E and he shouts, “Yes! Finally! You got it!”

“Well where are the E’s then?” You ask in turn, waiting for him to point them out.

He just gestures to the whole page and you realize that he means that every space left is an E. You feel pretty dumb for saving that letter for last, but it wasn’t intentional. You fill in all the blank spaces with the last letter and put the pencil down to look at your handiwork.

B E E T L E J U I C E

“ Beetle… Juice?” You say aloud, it feeling weird coming out of your mouth.

“Yes! That’s it babe!” He shouts back excitedly, floating up off of the couch slightly.

“What kind of name is that? I was expecting an ordinary human name or something.” You retort, looking at him.

“I’m a demon, what do you take me for? A James… maybe a Charlie? Oh how about  _ Rupert _ !” He jokes in response, doing funny voices for each name.

You laugh before replying, “Well I dunno, it’s not like I talk to many demons! How should I know?”

“That’s fair.. It sucks that it makes it much harder to guess though. At least if my name was something like Richard or whatever I could just tell you my name is Dick.” Beetlejuice reasons.

You snicker in response, setting the notepad down on the couch cushion in between the two of you. He takes a look at it once it is in front of him and gasps dramatically.

“Hey babes that’s me! When did you do that??” He says excitedly, pointing to your little drawing of him at the top of the hangman game.   
  
“I was drawing it the whole time, took you long enough to notice!” You say back with a small smirk.

“It’s perfect doll, really captures my essence” He says happily, taking a pause before continuing again, “Especially since he’s also dead.”

You snort in response, you didn’t actually draw him well or anything but the right details were there to make it obvious that it was him. You’re glad he noticed, cause you thought it was pretty fun to make him the hangman. Although now that you think of it maybe it was a little insensitive on your part, considering the whole being dead thing, but Beetlejuice doesn’t seem to care at all so you don’t think it matters. You move the notepad off the couch back to the table it came from, then look over at him and realize he is staring at you as if he is waiting for something.

“...What?” You ask, bringing your brows together in concern.

“Well you know my name now, so…” He says, trailing off.

Oh right, that game was because he wants your help. You ended up having a good time and just kind of forgot that part. That doesn’t change the fact that you won’t be helping him right now, it is sort of offensive that he just expects you to go along with it as if you’re that naive. The idea of demons was not something you even really believed in or thought about up until like an hour ago, but obviously they aren’t to be trusted. All the supernatural themed stories under the sun have taught you that much, not to mention you have common sense.

“Yeah, I’m not going to say it three times though.” You respond.

“Do you want me to beg? Because I am not above begging.” He says back, getting down onto the ground in front of the couch.

“What? No! There’s no point, I’m not doing it!” You say back, waving at him to stop kneeling down.

“Why not?! We were having a great time just now, what’s the problem?” He says back in an exasperated tone.

“The problem? I mean, you’re a demon, for one. I’m not just going to unleash you on the world and let’s see…oh yeah, I’m not stupid! Why would I help you?” You retort, narrowing your eyes at him.

“Cause that’s what friends are for babe! Helping each other out!” Beetlejuice says back desperately. 

You pause, and look visibly confused. He thinks you are friends, is he joking? You literally just met, you know he’s thousands of years old or whatever but this can’t be a matter of him not understanding today’s society or something, because that would be strange even in the past. Sure the game was fun, and you laughed at each other's jokes, but does he honestly think hitching an unwanted ride in your car and playing hangman together has suddenly made you both friends?

“We aren’t friends though.” You say back in a careful but stern voice.

His face falls into a frown and his whole posture even changes. You were starting to feel bad, it seems like he genuinely thought this was normal and that you and him had become friends really quickly. Although you can’t be too careful, maybe this was just an attempt at manipulation? You look at him intently, but you can’t be sure, it didn’t feel forced or fake at all. He hasn’t said anything yet either and he is looking down in thought. 

“Did his hair change, or was it always like that?” You think to yourself as you look at him. You sigh heavily, why did you have to have such a strong sense of empathy?

“Okay, listen. We aren’t friends, but if you want to become friends you have to earn it. I just met you, and you don’t scream ‘super trustworthy’ to me so--” You begin saying before you are cut off.

“I can scream that no problem- SUPER TRUSTWORTHY!!” He interrupts loudly.

“Will you keep it down, you know what I meant!” You yell back, scowling. 

You continue after a moment, “Anyway, you have to actually prove that you aren’t just going to up and murder people or set my house on fire if you want to get your powers back. If you can do that, then  _ maybe _ I’ll consider helping you.”

_ I guess that does make sense, but setting the house on fire was definitely on my mind so that sucks. This will be no problem! I can be friendly and not murderous long enough for her to help me, it shouldn’t take too long right? So I get to hang out with someone at least for now, but I would prefer to become her friend if I can, so that way she doesn’t kick me out or worse... If she decides she hates me after I get my powers back then I can still scram, and she’ll never find out about the part where she can banish me, so she’ll never have a chance to do it. It’s a win win! _

He thinks on it for a second, before smirking and replying “Alright, it’s a deal!”

“No no, not a deal, that’s too binding. This is a test! And I’m not going to let you off easy here, the first thing you did was scare me and embarrass me in front of a bunch of strangers at probably the worst possible time. So you have a lot to make up for.” You stay stern as you respond, crossing your arms.

“But scaring breathers is what I do! It is not fair to hold that against me.” He reasons, pointing to himself as he does.

“Sure fine, but I mean from now on, if I am your only ticket to freedom then I expect you to be nice to me at least. More bees with honey and all that.” You say honestly.

“I am  _ always _ nice to people who are cute so you don’t have to worry at all!” He fires back with a grin. 

“Uh huh, something tells me that isn’t true in the slightest.” You answer back flatly, quirking your brow at him. That isn’t what you meant when you asked for him to be nice to you, so maybe you’re gonna regret this after all.

“You’ll see! ...Wanna watch TV babe?” He smiles at you before rather quickly changing the subject.

You roll your eyes at the inclusion of a pet name and agree, then pull the remote off of the coffee table and flick the screen on. It starts on the channel it was last on and there is a home renovation show playing. You recline slightly, getting comfortable on the couch despite still wearing the clothes you picked out for the funeral. You weren’t gonna go change now, you were far too lazy to go all the way to your bedroom at this point. Picturing your bedroom makes you realize something suddenly, and you start talking before you have a chance to think about it.

“Wait so are you just going to like… live here now?” You question, looking over to him from the TV.

“Ya pretty much, why would I leave? I can finally talk to someone, I’m not gonna pass this up.” He answers casually, shrugging his shoulders.

You turn back to the screen once you hear his reply. You figured he would say something like that. But you weren’t ready to have a roommate! You didn’t have a spare bedroom, or spare anything really. And you were fairly busy with your office job during the week. How are you going to keep an eye on him?

“Do.. you need to sleep?” You wonder aloud, the question aimed at him but you keep your gaze on the screen.

“Not really, I do it anyway sometimes, usually out of boredom.” He answers back.

“Same. So it’s cool if you just have the couch then?” You question casually, sounding like this was just any old roommate arrangement. 

“Aw so I can’t sleep in the bed with you?” He remarks in what you hope is a joking tone, making puppy eyes at you.

“Absolutely not!” You say back, raising your voice slightly and feeling an embarrassed flush hit your cheeks.

He just laughs in return and you huff before turning back to the screen. You sit watching TV with him for a good while, you both making the occasional remark about how dumb the people on the show are, or making fun of the houses people pick. Generally just getting laughs out of each other at the expense of the uptight middle class couples that populate the shows on this network.

You can’t deny that he is pretty hilarious and having his company probably won’t be so bad either, considering all your friends were long distance and you never have anyone to hang out with. You start to think that maybe this Beetlejuice roommate situation won’t be so terrible after all, if he can behave that is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're enjoying the story so far please consider bookmarking it! I have plenty of the story planned out and I intend on finishing what I started so I would love for everyone to keep coming back as I write more. Thank you <3


	4. Office Trouble

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's another long chapter for you all! There is a perspective change in the middle here, you get to see things from BJ's point of view for a while. Italics is still his inner monologue though, no changes there! Enjoy <3

The weekend passes a little too quickly and before you know it you need to go back to work because it’s Monday morning. Ever since he started hanging around on Friday, Beetlejuice is turning out to be just like an annoying roommate rather than a menace much to your surprise. You’ve been spending more time in the living room watching TV than usual, because he usually asks you to turn it on for him. He jumps out of the fridge all too often and yet you still haven’t gotten used to it so the scare still gets you every time. He has tried on multiple occasions to go into the bathroom while you were showering, but you threaten him with never speaking to him again and he usually backs out quickly. You wish he wasn’t such a pervert but it’s only a mild annoyance since he is intangible and doesn’t pose any immediate threat to you.

You come out of your bedroom in one of your business casual outfits since you need to leave soon, just a simple pencil skirt and cardigan with flats, you figure it is probably warm enough outside to warrant your lack of pants. You regret your choice of a skirt once you make a few steps towards the living room however because the ghost is quickly on you, flying in a circle around you as you walk. You shake off a shiver as you pass through him to get to the kitchen, rolling your eyes as he makes a show of pretending like suddenly seeing your knees was the event of the century.

“Wow did you get all dressed up just for me? I’m so flattered!” He says, trying to put on his usual charms.

“No Beetlejuice, this is for the loving eyes of my computer screen at work, thank you.” You reply from in the fridge, grabbing your lunch.

You turn just in time to see him glowing faintly and holding his gaze on you, at first you think it’s just the skirt thing but then you remember that over the weekend you learned that hearing his name usually did that to him. You wonder briefly if that was normal for demons or if it just happened with him.

“I guess I need to call you something else, don’t want to accidentally say it consecutively or anything.” You add teasingly as you stand at the counter, packing a bag with your lunch, utensils, and a baggy of fruit snacks.

He groans in response, coming over to you with no more glow in sight. “I wouldn’t say that’s necessary at all, in fact, I would argue that it’s the worst thing you’ve ever come up with.”

“You’re full of it. How about BJ?” You answer, not even looking over to him as you finish up at the counter.

“I’d love one!” He says back, with all the grinning and mirth of an immature teenager.

You turn to him now, “Yes very funny, would you prefer Beetle? Uh.. Beej?” You list out some shortening options for his name with a roll of your eyes and a small smile.

“Whatever works for you babe, I love pet names.” He replies, the grin not leaving his face.

“That’s  _ not _ what these are. They’re just nicknames you creep.” You say back flatly, going past him to exit the kitchen.

You grab your keys and wallet from a little table in the living room and look around to make sure you have everything. Nothing seems to be missing, and you glance at the clock to see you’re just a few minutes away from when you would usually be out the door. You go up to the coffee table quickly and flick the TV on, but keeping the remote in your hand.

“What channel should I set you up with here?” You call out as he comes through the wall of the kitchen to be in the room with you.

“Oh uh.. I dunno something with movies? Why, will you be gone long?” He asks, looking from the screen to you.

“Yeah it’ll be all day, it’s a 9-5 job and It’s a couple towns over so it’ll be a bit of a drive to get back.” You answer as you switch to one of the many channels that play TV movies all day long.

“Oh well that sucks, I’ll just come with you! That will spice up the office life for sure.” He says happily, walking up to the front door behind you.

“Oh no no no, absolutely not! You can’t come to the office!” You say quickly, walking after him and standing in front of the door to be in his way.

“Why not? It would be more fun than staying here.” He replies easily, phasing through you and the door to be right outside instead.

You bristle at the cold of having him go through you and whip around to pull the front door open after him. You see him walking up to your car that’s parked at the front of the walkway and you go after him. You glance down to check your watch and realize you don’t have time to deal with him cause you need to leave now to beat the traffic.

“Hello, are you listening? You can’t go there! I need to leave right now, get back inside!” You snap at him, walking up and getting to your driver’s side door.

You look around to make sure no one is nearby to see you talking to yourself before you continue, “I don’t want to have to keep an eye on you while I’m there, my boss is a dick and he’ll be on my ass if I’m not productive enough for his liking.”

“A dick on your ass? I gotta be there for that babes!” He retorts with a grin.

You groan aloud, “Would you shut up! You have to stay here, I need to start driving..” You open your car door in the middle of your sentence, “Just… Please, could you please let me get going? I can’t be late.” You deflate at the end, sounding more worn and tired than annoyed at this point. You realize you can’t physically do anything to make him stop following you, except maybe threaten him, so you hope that he’ll just be nice and listen for once.

_ Jeez, that boss of hers sounds like a real piece of work. She’s so worried about getting there on time that she actually said please instead of just yelling at me, that’s definitely new. Usually if I push too many buttons she’ll just get all mad, which is pretty fun, but this is kind of just sad instead. Ahh fine I guess I’ll give her a break, TV won’t be so bad for the day, at least she’s nice enough to leave it on for me. _

“Alright alright, I’ll give up just this once hotstuff, but I’ll be here when you get back!” He concedes, backing up from the car in the direction of your house.

“Thank you Beetle. I’ll see you at 6!” You say back, relieved, before getting into your car and getting everything set up to start driving.

You sigh as you get in, hoping that the extra few minutes won’t mess up your routine too bad. You usually got there just on time, not wanting to have any more time at that place than you had to. It was bad enough you were asked to stay later sometimes without even getting overtime pay, so you worked out the perfect time to leave that gives you the most time at home. You start off and look into the rear view mirror to see him phase through the door back into your house. It dawns on you now the way that exchange went, that he’ll be here when you get home and you’ll see him at six.   
  
“Well.. so much for alone time at home.” You mutter, turning the radio up as you get on your way.

It didn’t really occur to you until just now that because he’s staying with you, you’ll have to be around co-workers when you’re out and you’ll be around Beetlejuice once you get home. You really value your alone time, even though sometimes you wished for the company of your friends since they live far away. How are you going to deal with having him in your house constantly and make it work? You learned pretty quickly over the weekend that he can be clingy and doesn’t really get boundaries that well, so your guess is that he probably wouldn’t take a liking to you getting home and then holing up in your room and asking him to leave you be. But then again, why did you care so much about potentially hurting his feelings? You sigh again through your nose and decide to zone out and listen to the music on the radio instead of worrying, after all work is bound to be stressful so you might as well enjoy this time in the car instead of being upset.

The drive goes by faster than you’d like before you are pulling up to the tall six story building in the downtown area of the small city closest to your town. You pull your car into the lot and pick a spot closest to the front before turning the car off and mentally preparing yourself for the day. You grab your bag and little lunch cooler off the passenger seat and get out to begin heading inside.

“Hey Y/N, wait up!” You hear from behind you as you start toward the side door of the building.

Oh great, it’s William. You put on a forced smile and glance behind you to see him picking up speed to start walking with you. He’s chatting your ear off as you two enter the building, and he holds the door for you. You let him have a polite thank you and then unfortunately have to share the elevator ride up with him. Lately this guy has been bothering you more and more at work, because it was never just a normal conversation or polite question, he always seemed to be too close to you and he never talks to you the same way he does everyone else. He’s already tried before to ask you out for drinks after work, and even after you declined his offers he still hasn’t taken the hint that you’re not interested in him.

You’re happy once you two can part because at least you’re on two opposite sides of the same floor so you can turn right when he goes left and not have to deal with him anymore. You pass by your boss’s office on the way to your little cubicle and desk, you notice him looking at you as you go past. You see your familiar set up the same way you left it Thursday, various colorful sticky notes around and a big binder of information you still need to get done for this quarter. You set your things down and unload your bag so that your phone, charger and headphones are near the mouse to the computer and your baggy of fruit snacks are far from your keyboard but still within reach. Once you finish up you go around the corner and put your lunch bag into the fridge in the break room, then return to your desk. You sink into your seat and boot the computer up, opening the binder to skim through to where you left off as the monitor comes to life.

Nothing left to do now except more boring data entry. You weren’t happy doing this, but the degree in communications you got ended up only getting you this far after school was over. You were at least considered an administrative assistant which is a higher position so you get paid more, but your boss rarely relegated anything exciting for you to do so it doesn’t actually matter. It was merely a title by name, since you didn't do much more than data entry and the occasional presentation. It made you enough money to live okay though, you could pay your bills and afford to maintain your old car, plus you have the internet and food, so in the end what more did you really need? You let your mind sink into the repetitive task of typing the numbers and figures, checking and double checking that everything is in line. You let yourself absent-mindedly wonder what Beetlejuice was up to back at your house, if TV would be entertaining enough while you were gone.

* * *

“Well she’s gone.. Only like 10 hours left now.. This blows” You say aloud, flopping onto the couch in front of the TV she left on. 

Having somewhere to be was kind of nice, you had just been wandering around aimlessly and eavesdropping on people before you met her. But you forgot to take into account that breathers have their dumb little lives to tend to, so now you’re all alone again without much to do. You consider trying to attempt to bother some people in the neighborhood, maybe pop back up in the graveyard to spy on some edgy teenagers that hang out there while skipping school. But none of it seems interesting right now, yet neither does the tv at the same time. You start to pay attention to the screen and realize some old movie is playing. The scene goes by and then you’re greeted by a girl with a blue and white dress and a little dog in a basket.

“Oh the Wizard of Oz, what a classic!” You say to no one, might as well, since there’s no harm in talking to yourself.

“I wish I could just.. Change the channel myself. This invisible crap is really getting on my nerves!” You grumble, reaching for the remote left on the couch cushion and watching your fingers go right through it.

You get up from the couch and decide to snoop around in the house some, you can’t open any drawers or move things but you are able to just put your face through stuff to see inside. You start in the kitchen, looking into all the cabinets and then the pantry.

“It’s pretty bare in here.. It would be fun to eat again, I miss the taste of chocolate.” You eye a box of brownie mix on a shelf as you ponder it.

_ It’s weird how little is in there, maybe she needs to go to the store or something? _

You walk out of the kitchen and check on the bathroom. Nothing unusual in there, but you stand in the shower and read the labels on the bottles for a while anyway. Finally you make it over to her bedroom, probably the least explored room of the small house for you. The bed is undone, and there are some discarded clothes hanging off the edge, plus a laptop next to the pillow she sleeps on with the charger cable stretched across to the other side. You look into her dresser and see a bunch of unorganized dark colored clothes plus a small book in the top left drawer.

“Ohh, that’s fun, it’s probably a diary, wonder what I’d find in there!” You echo from inside the wooden dresser with a laugh.

You eye the second drawer at the top and see that it’s the combination socks and panties drawer. You have no shame so of course you’re looking in there too. You notice a pair of black and white striped socks, and even though they aren’t there because of you, you’d like to think they are instead of just being a coincidence.

“Nice.. pretty cute..” You say with a grin as you take note of the different colors of underwear. 

You almost felt bad, but not really. You back out from the dresser and notice the room is rather empty other than the long blackout curtains covering the only window in the room. 

_ What a strange girl, there’s barely anything here! Aren’t women the type to be hoarders or somethin’..? This is boring, couldn’t I have been given some person who actually does stuff besides work so I could have some excitement while I’m trapped? She’s my only shot so I’m stickin’ with her, but this “taking it slow” approach is taking too long already. I think I’m winning her over though, and it doesn’t seem hard, I think she’s lonely too. All my jokes seem to land with her, which is a plus! She doesn’t usually laugh when I throw in the random sexual ones, but that’s fine, those are still very fun for me all the same. Maybe if I can get her to live a little it would be more fun around here. But she’s not so bad, she’s funny herself, and pretty. Plus scaring her is awesome, she still jumps every time! Yeah... I wouldn’t mind having her as a friend for'real, after she helps me eventually. Especially if she’d be down to party or do some crimes or something.  _

You look over at the clock on her bedside table and see that it’s been quite a while. You wonder if she’s in the office now doing her job or if it is already time to eat for people that live on a schedule. You lose track of that stuff all the time, especially since you don’t even need to eat to begin with. You try for just a moment to resist the urge to go check, but you fail right away. 

“A little visit can’t hurt.. I can just pop back here if she gets really mad.” You say to the walls, activating one of your remaining powers in order to travel to where her office is.

You show up on the street and look up to see a tall silver-y building, which you guess is the right one since it’s the biggest one around. You start to walk over towards it when you hear something that catches your ear.

* * *

After what feels like much too long it’s finally time for your lunch break! You have a vibrating alarm in your phone to let you know there’s only a couple minutes to get to the break room and get your food ready before the 30 minutes of free time starts. Lunch breaks are weird in your office, there are a few time slots during the day set for eating and workers pick the ones they want for the week in advance in order to be approved. Apparently it’s done that way so it isn’t possible to have everyone out eating at once in case there are customers calling or some kind of emergency. It’s been working fine for you thus far, you always picked the same slot either way, the last one before the lunch times ended. You found it was usually the emptiest since people want to eat sooner, which you enjoyed.

The soup cup from your lunch is done heating so you grab everything and head over to the elevator. Most people just ate in the break room, but when the weather was good you liked to take the extra time to go over to the side of the building where some outdoor seating is set up on the grass nearby the parking lot. You get there in no time and open up your couple containers so you can begin eating. You’re enjoying the nice breeze and your food for a few minutes before your peace is interrupted.

“Hey beautiful, funny seeing you here.” A voice comes from your right.

You turn and realize it’s William, “Oh. Uh, hi..” You stutter out, startled from not having expected to see him for the rest of the day since you usually do a great job of avoiding him.

Then he’s sitting down at your table uninvited, setting up his own store bought lunch across from you. He takes your silence in stride and goes on to keep talking, seeming not to read your expression at all despite feeling like you’re scowling at him.

“So I’m sure you heard but I was the one responsible for catching that issue in the system before we sent out the files for last quarter, and it’s a good thing too, I mean how embarrassing would it have been if our sister company got the reports and saw that blatant mistake? How amateur!” He goes on, not seeming to be interested in having an actual conversation, just in bragging.

You nod and “mhm” him occasionally but don’t bother hiding your lack of interest, just chewing slowly and counting the seconds as he goes on. You’ve zoned out completely to what he is actually saying at this point, looking intently at your soup instead, moving the liquid around with your spoon. You glance at him after a bit and realize he’s staring at you now.

‘What?” You ask flatly.

“I asked… what do you say? Tomorrow night?” He says, leaning forward on the table, getting much closer to you than you’d like.

You lean away from him, back into your chair, “No. I’m busy, and I’ll continue to be busy.” you say back, not even sure what kind of date he was proposing since you weren’t listening, but you knew for certain you didn’t care either way.

“Hey come on, just give me a chance alright? All I’m saying is let’s get dinner, just a little restaurant near the office. It won't even be long I promise.” He pushes, insistent with an edge showing in his voice.

“Oh yeah I’m sure a night with you would be very short, you desperate fuck.” You think angrily to yourself, not bringing yourself to say it aloud even though you wish you could.

“I already told you once, no, I don’t care how far away it is or how short the dinner would be, it’s a no.” You state back sternly. 

You see he is about to keep going but all of a sudden he audibly shivers, leaning back away from you to reveal that Beetlejuice has somehow snuck up behind him and is hovering in his space to make him very cold.

“This guy bothering you?” Beetlejuice says to you, with William unable to hear anything.

“Dang, it really must be Spring, I just got hit with a crazy cold breeze or something…” He trails off, holding his hands together.

Beetlejuice all but sits in the guy’s lap, completely unseeable to anyone but you. You hold in a snicker and instead decide to take advantage of this.

“Oh really, weird, I feel just fine over here. Maybe you’re just getting sick. You should get back inside, maybe head home for the day.” You say to William, trying to sound as uncaring as possible as you go.

“Maybe you’re right, I’d love to get the rest of the day off. I better go play this up. Hey, thanks for the advice, think about what I said, okay?” He shoots back, trying to be charming as he gets up and starts back to the office.

You huff with a frown as you watch him go, relieved that he’s gone and you’ll get to have the rest of your lunch break in peace. Well, almost. You turn back forward to see Beetlejuice has taken his place, sitting with his elbows up on the metal table. You’re about to say something to him but you check around you first and see that there are a few people nearby from your building and surrounding buildings. You make the smart choice to pick your phone up and hold it to your ear to make it look like you’re in a call with someone before you go ahead and talk with him, since you don’t want people to think you’re crazy.

“So what are you doing here? I asked you to stay home while I worked.” You say looking at him, surprisingly with no anger in your tone.

“Oh well you know how it is, TV gets kinda boring. Plus you aren’t working right now, so I’m not bothering anyone but that guy.” He shrugs.

“That’s fair… and Thank you.” You say quietly, a little bit embarrassed that you needed help in the first place.

“Don’t mention it, what’s his problem anyway?” He asks, sounding curious.

“He’s just a jerk, doesn’t know how to take a hint for the life of him. This is the third time he’s tried asking me out, I said no the first two times too and I have been showing the most disinterest I can muster! It’s like it just goes in one ear and out the other, totally not listening at all. He’s insufferable! He brags all the time, tries to seem impressive with his fancy car even though it’s got this ugly paint job, he never takes criticism on his reports, and he holds his slightly higher position in the office over me as if he is actually that much more important in the grand scheme of things. What a load of shit..” You rant angrily, maybe getting a little too passionate about just how much William makes your blood boil.

You wish you didn’t take it so personally but it was hard not to be frustrated when he was around and it didn’t help that he insisted on bothering you any chance he got. You try to be civil but it’s hard when he’s as dense as a wall and won’t take no for an answer.

“Woah-ho babe, you are firey! I like it! Where is this attitude usually?” Beetlejuice comments, smiling at you.

You push air out of your nose, “Well I try to be a good person, a calm person, but god.. I hate him, I really do. Wish he’d just get transferred to our sister company, or get fired! That would be even better!”

“You want me to kill that guy for ya?” He shoots back, completely casually.

“WHAT?” You respond all too loudly. You check around and see someone was looking up from their phone at you with confusion.

You bring your voice back now, still holding your phone up but talking to the ghost, “No! I hate him but I don’t want him to die, what the hell man?”

“Listen I’m just sayin, it would make your life a whole lot easier I bet.” He answers with a shrug.

“BJ you are insane, no I’m not gonna ask you to kill anyone. So get that out of your head! That is not cool.” You retort, trying to keep your voice down so people don’t hear you discussing murder during lunch.

“Sure sure, I mean, I can’t do  _ anything _ right now anyway so you can relax babes. Unless you’ve decided you’re ready to help me now in return for shooing him away?” He grins at you, hopeful.

“No, I’m not. Like I said, I appreciate your help, but I am definitely not ready to go through with that yet.” You respond honestly.

You look at him and see he’s smiling at you even more now. Wait, did you say  _ yet _ just now? Shit, now his hopes are definitely up, and you feel bad again because that was probably a lie. You aren’t sure you’d ever feel comfortable enough to let him get his powers back, especially not with his suggestion of murder from a couple minutes ago. You look down at your mostly finished lunch, check the time, and realize you need to be heading in soon.

You decide to change the subject using that since you aren’t ready to have that conversation, especially not here.

“Okay well you should probably head back, I need to get inside soon and keep working..” You start off saying before you’re interrupted.

His eyes dart down to your unfinished food and he cuts in suddenly, “Your pantry is basically completely empty by the way.”

“What? Why were you in the pantry.. Wait. Fuck.” You curse before continuing, “I forgot I needed to go grocery shopping over the weekend since I was busy with you. I hate going during the week cause I only have time after work.”

“I just thought you should know, since you need food to live.” Beetlejuice responds in an odd tone after you finish grumbling to yourself.

“Alright well, I need to get back, we can go shopping once I’m out then.” You say, gathering your things and standing.

“Wait, we? I can come too?” He questions in a surprised voice.

“Yeah sure, why not? Get on back home, I’m heading up.” You say with a small wave, turning back and heading inside, happy to see that he doesn’t follow after like you thought he might.

_ We’re actually going to do something different today! Ah how fun, I can stretch my scaring legs a little and see how many people I can mess with in the store! That guy sounds like a prick, seeing her all riled up was exciting but I thought for sure she’d give in if I offered to off ‘em. I’m definitely starting to get through to her though, I can tell. Maybe I just came on too strong? She said I should head home, didn’t she? Home… That’s a concept I can get used to. Shit maybe if I play my cards right she wouldn’t mind me sticking around after I get my powers back too, if I don’t freak her out too much.  _

_ Yeah… I think I’d like that. _


	5. Grocery Shopping

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading so far everybody, and following as I upload the story! This one is a bit of a shorter chapter, but I hope it's still a fun read!

With a stretch of your arms over your head you watch your monitor flick off and the dull fans of the computer come to a stop. The work day is finally over, you roll your shoulders and stand up before you start to pack your things away. Glancing out the window you see that it’s just about fully dark out, having missed the prettiest part of the sun set already. That’s a shame, it would have been nice to leave early enough to see the sky when it was still pink and orange. You start towards the elevator, looking into your boss’s office on the way past, but not seeing anyone inside. He probably took off early like he usually does, because he is the only person that can without getting in trouble. You try not to think about him or anything else in the office as you take the ride down, just happy to be done after a long and tiring day. You begin to look forward to getting home before you remember that you need to hit the store before going there and sigh again, if only you had remembered over the weekend.

The building is quiet as you make your way through the lobby and then outside to the parking lot, walking up to your car at the front. You hit the button on your keys to unlock the car a few steps away and then swing the driver’s side door open, lean down, and toss your bag unceremoniously toward the passenger’s seat where it rests while you drive. You hear a yelp from inside your car as it lands, you duck down again and look into your car while shining the light from your phone inside.

“Hi babes!” Comes Beetlejuice’s reply from your passenger seat, the bag you tossed is sitting where his right thigh would be if he was tangible.

You get in and close the door behind you, looking at him you notice his hair looks different than usual, like it might be yellowish instead of green? But it was hard to tell with the low light of night time, you snicker a little realizing the noise you heard came from him.

“What are you doing in here? Did I scare you?” You ask him with a laugh, getting the car started as you talk.

“No! I was just.. Startled, cause I was napping, that’s all! I went back after your break was over but I got bored again so I came here and waited in the car for you to get out.” He says, sounding embarrassed. 

He sounds like he is just making an excuse, but you do believe he was sleeping though because he was slumped down so much that you didn’t even notice him when you first got to the car. The engine comes to life and you start to make your way towards the grocery store closest to home.

“Well it was nice of you to wait for me here, cause now I can go straight there instead of picking you up!” You say over the music, reaching over to turn it down some.

“Oh that’s no problem babe, you could’ve just gone right to the store and then called me there.” He responds in his usual gravelly voice.

“What, do you have a phone? I don’t have your number though.” You say back confused.

“Wow asking for my number when we’re only a few minutes into our first date, how bold!” He shoots back with a grin.

“Oh shut up you, people don’t even go on dates to the grocery store!” You say back with a roll of your eyes as you laugh with him.

“Says who? Dates can be anywhere. But no I don’t mean a phone, you can just say my name!” He says cheerily.

“We’re back on this again huh? It seems like you only care about getting your powers back not being my friend.” You say back with mock hurt in your voice.

“No, I do want to be your friend!” He says quickly, sounding slightly panicked. 

He doesn’t wait for you to respond, just continues instead, “I’m talking about something else, if I’m not around and you say my name I can still hear it, so you can call me to wherever you are... if you want to.”

“Really? So is that why you always look uh..  _ Like that _ , whenever I say it?” You question him, pulling into the parking lot of the store as you do.

“Look like what?” He asks in return, with genuine confusion despite the toothy smile.

“Nevermind.” You say with a laugh, opening the car door and starting to get out.

He follows you out of the car and comes up next to you as you lock it up and begin walking over to get a cart. To your surprise he walks with you as you head to the entrance and go in, you figured he would dart inside, ready to get on with whatever mischief he had planned for the people shopping. It’s pretty empty since it’s night time but you head over to the produce section first since it’s right in the front. You’re looking down at a bin with heads of lettuce inside when you hear your name come from somewhere behind you.

  
“Hey Y/N, check this out!” Beetlejuice calls to you.

He’s sitting at the top of a pyramid of oranges swinging his feet around, he’s several feet up from the floor but no one can see him up there but you. You grin, do a quick glance to check for people, then wave up at him from where you are. He smiles in return and then awkwardly slides down the front of the oranges until he is sitting at the edge of the display right in front of a random woman who is inspecting them for herself. She is picking up oranges around where he is sitting, so he starts to put his hand over hers as she grabs them. You walk up a little further and wait to see her reaction, not close enough to be obvious but still nearby enough to see her face. She looks disgruntled, and keeps pulling her hands away from the fruit suddenly, before leaning down and looking at them closer. 

BJ follows her as she moves to different fruits, continuing to make everything she touches cold. You can tell she is getting frustrated since it’s written all over her face, you do your best to keep from laughing so she doesn’t see you watching her. He keeps doing this all the way until the woman starts looking at the tomatoes, when the first one she picks up is cold she grunts angrily, letting it fall from her hand onto the floor. Suddenly she storms off, and stops in front of a young man cleaning on the other side of the produce section. You can just overhear that she is complaining to him that everything is being refrigerated, even if they didn’t need to be, and don’t they know that tomatoes go bad if they’re kept cold? She’s far enough away now that you let yourself laugh, covering your mouth with your hand and turning to grab some onions as you do.

“Well your manager is stupid then, tomatoes don’t belong in the fridge!!” Beetlejuice mocks her voice next to you, suddenly appearing there after you turned away.

“That was amazing, she’s so mad for no reason!” You say back, starting to leave produce after you grabbed a few things during his little show.

“I know right! You breathers get all bent outta shape for no reason” He says back with a laugh.

“Pfft, it’s not about being alive or dead, it’s about being old and boring enough to want to speak to a manager about a tomato. Like god lady, get a life!” You respond with a snort.

You see him smile at you after that line, you turn to look down one of the isles but decide to skip it cause there are a few people shopping there. You pick the next empty one and start walking down it, grabbing a few things here and there to put in the cart. He makes himself float inside the cart so it’s like you're pushing him around, but it makes no difference for you since he weighs nothing so you don’t bother asking him to get out. You stop to look at different cake and muffin mixes, debating with yourself if you want to grab one and bake something over the next weekend.

“Let’s get chocolate!” He says from behind you, pointing up at a brownie mix nearby where you’re looking.

“I think I already have one of those at home, plus I’m shopping for me, you can’t even eat.. who am I, your mother?” You retort in a joking tone, but you look his way and notice he’s got a frown and isn’t laughing.

“No you’re not nearly terrible enough to be my mother, but it’s a nice try, if you wanna be that bad you’ll need to do worse than deny me dessert.” He says, leaning his head back against the inside of the cart.

You’re looking at him fully now, holding a box of cake mix in your hands in front of the cart, not really sure what to say in response. Usually if it gets tense a joke is your go-to response but now doesn’t seem like the time. In the bright lights of the store you notice his hair is definitely not just green and brown anymore, it’s got purple in it now.

“She never really kept anything in the house, except booze. Then she’d get mad at  _ me  _ for trying some! Like hello,  _ mom _ , there isn’t even any food or water here, what else am I supposed to do? What a bitch, amirite?” He continues on, doing a reenactment of a conversation he had with his mother, trying to laugh it off at the end.

“I didn’t know that demons had.. Mothers.” You say quietly after he pauses for a while, figuring it was your cue to talk.

“I don’t know if we usually do… so uh, lucky me, I guess, right?” He says looking to the side, pushing a hand through his hair and scratching the material on the knees of his pants.

You watch as his fingers go through his own strands of hair, noticing how all the green was gone at this point, leaving only purple on brown roots left. He sounds pretty upset about his mother, but you weren’t expecting a serious topic in the grocery store so you’re really caught off guard. You don’t want to seem like you don’t care but the only thing you can think of is to try to change the subject, so you go for that.

“Um.. so how come your hair is different sometimes?” You say, trying to sound normal.

“What? I.. oh OH. It’s just.. Phases of the moon?” He starts off confused, then sounds panicked again, smoothing a hand over the top of his head as he responds.

You watch as little bits of yellow start to appear near the tops of his ears, and you lean forward to look closer.

“But the moon takes days to change phases, and yours is changing right now.” You say, pointing a finger at the growing yellow on his head.

“Uhh, dunno babe, maybe witchcraft?” He says, laughing nervously, the hair growing more yellow as he does.

You sigh and lean back away from him, getting the hint and taking to pushing the cart forward again, “That makes sense to me! …Sorry if it’s too personal, I’m just curious is all, no pressure though.”

“...um, thanks... When we unlock level 1 friendship I’ll tell you then.” He says quietly, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Oh..well I can’t wait!” You say back happily, flashing a smile.

You see him break out into the usual wide grin, his hair quickly making it’s way back to green. It puts you at ease to see him looking normal again, which is not something you thought you would be feeling around him considering the circumstances. But normal Beetlejuice was definitely better than whatever sad situation that was back there, you feel bad that he has a mother but apparently she’s a bad one. It’s kind of hard to wrap your head around that because it doesn’t seem like anything demonic you’ve ever heard of, but you guess things just work differently in real life, or is it real death?

You spend the rest of your time quickly gathering things into your cart, stacking up the items where he is sitting. He makes it look like his arm is coming out from the top of a cereal box and takes the opportunity to open and close his hand to make it look like a sock puppet talking. He does this in order to insult and shout at other shoppers you both pass by, making a funny voice that sounds like it’s coming out of the box instead of from him. You snicker quietly as he does, trying not to draw too much attention to yourself since everything looked normal from other people’s perspective.

Finally it’s time to get out of here, you pull up to the check out area and start to load up the belt with your items. You notice Beetlejuice get out from the cart and go to mess with the cashier, but you keep going. You make the usual customer service style conversation back and forth with the young man running the register, and then pay as he puts the last few items into bags for you. You say a final thank you and goodnight as you roll out to the parking lot, the ghost following behind you right after. You put the bags into your back seat and return the cart before getting into your car again to see the familiar set up of him in your passenger seat waiting expectantly. It’s a little crazy that you’re already so used to this, but maybe he wasn’t so bad after all, at least he didn’t seem that way to you.

You start the drive back, and lean over to turn the radio up to a good volume.  _ Take Me Home Tonight _ comes on and you tap your fingers on the steering wheel to the beat, glad you left it on a classic rock station. Once the chorus starts up you want to sing along but you only let yourself hum, a lot more reserved than you would normally be since you’re sharing the ride back with someone. You pull up to a redlight and look over to him to see that he’s jamming to the music as well, seeming to know the song. It’s fun to see him get into it, dancing a little in his seat like no one is looking, you realize that usually no one would be, so it’s like a special occasion just for you. You smile at that, and once the second round of the chorus starts up you give up on being nervous about it and start singing along, getting into the music just as much as he is. You can feel his eyes on you as you sing the lyrics, not nearly as good as the original song, but you push on anyway.

Just a moment later, from your right you can hear him go “I don't wanna let you go 'til you see the light” along with the song. You’re surprised he’s started to sing too, but you never took him for the shy type anyway. You both end up singing the song loudly along with the radio, Beetlejuice sounding much nicer than you would expect given how rough his voice naturally is. The song fades out just in time for you to get up to your house, pulling up and putting the car into park just as the host of the station starts to introduce their next commercial break. You turn the car off and jump out then start to grab the bags, heading up to your door still humming the tune from the song. It takes two trips since you’re doing it alone, you notice him standing off to the side from your car, watching you take things as you go in with the last of the bags. You set the bags down to close the door behind you and he just comes in through the wall, you glance at him as you pick them back up and start to head to the kitchen. You notice his hair isn’t all the way green again, but it’s not purple this time, you weren’t looking too closely but you didn’t want to make it obvious you were looking since he seemed uncomfortable before. You decide to just get into the kitchen and unpack everything rather than dwell on it, after all he said he would tell you when he was ready.

_ Shit... Maybe she’s more fun than I gave her credit for. I guess work is what drags her down, but outside of that she’s great company. And she said she can’t wait to be my friend…Should I just tell her about my stupid hair? Fuck I don’t want to be an open book though. Man what did I get myself into here? _

The rest of the night goes on without a hitch, you make a simple pasta dinner and BJ comments on how he wants to eat all the leftovers, but you pack them away for future lunches instead since he can’t eat them anyway. You both settle on the couch to watch some late-night game shows, they run all day everyday if you find the right channels. You decide on family feud and you and him try to guess which team will win during their introductions and then what the top answers are each round. He seems pretty into game shows for some reason, but you guess that makes sense with his Pat Sajak comment from before, but they’re an odd thing for a demon to be into either way. You spend longer than you probably should doing this, and it ends up being a fun night in, but you realize it’s getting late and you need to be up for work the next day.

“Alright, I’m gonna turn in, should I leave this on for you?” You stand up and say, motioning to the TV screen.

“Nah, it’ll probably be re-runs all night anyway, you can turn it off.” Comes his reply.

You flick the TV off and set the remote down, then gather your things and start to make your way towards the bedroom. You stop before you get inside and turn around to see him stretching his arms above his head from his place on the couch.

“So what are you going to be up to all night then?” You ask, lingering in the doorway to your bedroom.

“I was thinking I might try to sleep tonight, I don’t need it but it does feel good.” He answers, hanging over the back of the couch to look at you while he talks.

“Oh okay, well goodnight then!” You call in return.

He smiles at you, “Night!”

You smile back before retreating into your bedroom, closing the door behind you softly. As you get unchanged and into pajamas for bed you can’t help but feel like things are different now. At first you were angry, you had a short temper and didn’t give him any patience at all, but now it was like you guys were regular roommates. Shopping together, hanging out, watching TV, just generally being friendly, and helping each other out. Well almost, he has helped you but you haven’t done anything in return unless you count letting him stay in your house. You are starting to feel really bad for him, and guilty, but you aren’t seriously considering helping him get his powers back are you? After everything that has happened you were pretty obviously becoming his friend, the weirdest part being how easy it has been to do so, so maybe you are considering it. Is that wrong? These questions keep you up late that night, finding it hard to sleep with so much on your mind, eventually drifting into sleep much later than you would have liked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ohhh getting a little emotional now, with the mother drama rearing it's old head. Hope I did that justice, I wanted it to feel like he was obviously upset by it but is still trying to brush it off or turn into a laugh instead of dealing with it. Poor reader, that is NOT grocery store conversation lmao


	6. Last Chance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey people! This one is a doozy, I didn't have a stopping point I liked so I made this chapter huge instead, haha oops. Enjoy!

An alarm blares loudly next to you from your sprawled out place in your bed, you reach over and blindly grab for your phone until you can snooze it. You do this once, twice, three times, until you fall back asleep again after the last alarm finishes. You don't remember falling asleep after your alarms got done, but you don’t realize until much later when a loud sound wakes you.

“Hey Y/N isn’t this when you should be awake! Are you good?” Beetlejuice yells from the other room, throwing his voice to make it louder in your bedroom and startling you awake.

You shoot up in bed, looking around to see he isn’t in here like you thought he was. You unlock your phone quickly in order to see the time and all but scream when you see it’s only 10 minutes until you need to be out the door.

“FUCK” You yell, tossing your blankets angrily and jumping up out of bed.

You grab the first few things in your dresser, scramble to pull them all on and rush into your bathroom to do what you can in a few short minutes. You emerge from your bedroom a bit later and literally run to the kitchen to get food for yourself so you don’t starve at work.

On your way past you hear him say, “Should I have said something sooner?”

“Yes! But thanks for trying, this is better than nothing!” You call from the kitchen, scooping leftover pasta into a container quickly. 

He floats in a second later and just watches you as you throw the leftovers back into the fridge, open the pantry and grab two granola bars, then rush past him. In the living room you grab a light jacket, your bags and keys, check the time and then run out the door. You get to your car and toss everything into the passenger’s seat, before realizing you forgot something.

“Shit.” you whisper to yourself, turning around to head back in.

You quickly make your way back up the walkway and unlock your door again, coming inside without even closing the door. You go straight for the couch, find the remote, and turn the tv on before turning around again to head back out.

“Thanks babe!” He calls from behind you before you close the door.

“See you tonight!” You call back, closing and locking the door again.

You race to your office, and manage to only be around fifteen minutes late as you pull into the parking lot. You just hope no one will notice. No one stops you this time on your way in since everyone else is already inside, which is good and bad. The elevator ride up seems to last forever before you make it to your floor, once you do you step out and realize you have to walk past your boss’s office to get to your desk so you’re totally screwed. You take a deep breath, try to look confident and normal then start walking past to get to your cubicle. You pass the windowed office without looking inside, stepping past and making it to your area where you begin to set your things down.  You let out a big sigh of relief as you take your jacket off, now that you’ve made it to your desk you are in the clear. Just as you begin to take your lunch out to go put it into the refrigerator you hear a familiar voice call from down the hall.

“Y/N can you see me in my office immediately?” It’s your boss calling from the doorway to his office, he ducks back inside but leaves the door cracked.

Fuck. You’ve done it now, he knows you came in late and he’s about to chew you out. You go throw the food into the fridge quickly and then nervously make your way up to the door of his office. He makes a motion for you to come in and you follow suit, walking inside and closing the door behind you. You take a few steps inside and sit on one of the chairs positioned in front of his desk, waiting for him to speak.

“So, do you know why I called you in here today?” He says, looking away from the computer to you.

“Sir I’m so sorry, I don’t know how it happened but this morning my usual alarm didn’t go off so I was running late this morning. I tried to get here as fast as I could once I realized, I promise it will not happen again.” You say, keeping your eyes down, trying to sound genuine.

“No that isn’t why. I didn’t even realize you were late, but thank you for being honest with me. Make sure it does not happen again.” He responds, lifting an eyebrow at you.

You nod, a confused expression gracing your face. You look up to him now and see that he looks stern and serious, but you aren’t sure why else you would be here. You always did your best with your work, you took the job seriously despite being unhappy, and unlike some people you weren’t stealing the office supplies. You swallow and clear your throat a little, trying to stay calm.

“I’m sorry sir, then I don’t realize why you’ve called me inside. Have I done something wrong?” You say, trying to remain calm and collected despite feeling increasingly nervous.

“Well you see, I am not blind. And I am not stupid. Do you think I don’t see what you’ve been up to?” He grunts back, sounding insulted.

“I.. excuse me, but no, I haven’t done anything! What are you talking about?” You stammer out, feeling attacked.

“Look Y/N our policies are very strict around here and I was clear about that upfront when I hired you straight out of college. You’re lucky I took a chance on you anyway, you weren’t qualified for this job in the first place. But don’t play dumb with me now that you’ve been caught.” He says, leaning back in his chair and staring straight into you.

You feel like tears are about to prick at your eyes, you really don’t know what he could be talking about. You think back to the last few years in this office, what policy are you breaking? Nothing is coming to mind, but he is looking to you expectantly, as if waiting for you to own up to your crimes. You try to stay calm, and stay strong, you do not want to look weak in front of him right now.

You take a shaky breath and push on, “With all due respect, can you please explain to me what you mean. I promise you this is a misunderstanding, I know I haven’t been breaking any work policies.”

He crosses his arms before continuing, “You are dating a fellow co-worker, when I was very clear that this is not the environment for that kind of relationship. And even worse, you have been trying and failing to hide it from me for weeks. I am very fair and clear with what I want here from you all. I want a clean and orderly working environment where things run smoothly and my employees do not slack off. So explain to me how you aren’t breaking policy?”

You feel your face heat up with anger as he talks, you can’t believe what he is saying. It takes all your strength not to yell in his face, because you know exactly who he is talking about. William, that dirty weasel, must have done something or said something to make it seem that way to others. Maybe he was even lying and bragging about making you into a one-night stand or something else gross that would be right up his alley. You take a long deep breath before you try to explain.

“Sir, you are mistaken, I am not dating anyone right now, especially not someone in this office. I don’t know what people have been saying, but I assure you that it is not true.”

He grunts in response, leaning forward on his forearms on the surface of his desk, “So you mean to tell me that you are not dating William Bernard from accounting? Even though I can see you from my office talking with him every morning, and even though from my window down to the courtyard I noticed you both sharing lunches together several times. Whenever I catch you two together you are much too close for a working environment, and I’ve seen him holding your waist on a few occasions. It’s funny you mention that you don’t know what others were saying, because it’s not other people at all. I can see with my own two eyes that it is true.”

You feel like your ears are about to release steam, like if you don’t scream this second you will explode. You try to keep your reserve but it’s just too much at this point. Originally when William started acting this way you were too nervous to do anything but just avoid him and brush him off, you never intended on trying to get him in trouble for his actions because you worried you would lose your job over the conflict. But now with your boss in front of you, accusing you because of him, those days were behind you, whatever he gets is what he deserves.

“I am not dating him, in fact I hate him. He will not leave me alone, and he won’t take no for an answer. He has asked me out several times, drinks, dinner, whatever to try to get me to be alone with him. He’s a sleaze and I have been nothing but clear that I am not interested in him. He has been pushy, and making me uncomfortable for weeks. I tried to be professional, I tried to just handle it myself. But since you’ve seen some of that behavior, I am coming clean right now, that this is what has been happening. I am not dating him, but he has been trying for a while now and I honestly don’t know if I feel safe working with him.” You rant about what has been happening, trying to recount everything honestly and keep your temper in check as you explain.

Your boss makes strong eye contact with you for a moment, then looks at you up and down in a way you find creepy. He doesn’t respond right away, just sits with his arms folded as he leans back away from you. You wait, trying to read what he could be thinking from his cold expression. He opens his mouth and you think you’re about to get your answer, but then he starts laughing. A low chuckle as he shakes his head.

“I can’t believe this... Do you really expect me to think that he is the one pursuing you and that  _ you  _ have turned him down? Look I will give you a break here, because you are productive and it might hurt the company to fire you, plus it takes a lot of guts to sit here and lie right to my face. I announced it this morning, which you missed, but the office is actually going to be closed starting tomorrow until Friday for routine maintenance on the server room and computer network, you have until we come back to clear up that situation and stop seeing him or it’s your job on the line.” He stands as he talks in an even tone, turning around to face the window behind his office and looking down.

“I’m taking the rest of the day off.” Is all you manage to say back without starting to cry, a wobble still showing in your voice regardless.

You get your last word out and stand, storming out of the office and slamming the door behind you, letting the anger take over as you forget about any consequences your actions may have at this point. You stomp over to your desk, watching as several heads poke up to look at you over the cubicle walls. You grab your things quickly, don’t even bother going to collect your food in the fridge and turn on your heel to leave the office immediately. You take the stairs just for the hell of it, absolutely fuming on the way down. You swing the side door open roughly and head straight to your car, not daring to look up at where you know his office window is.

The ride home is fast because traffic has cleared by now but also because you might have been speeding, gripping the steering wheel too hard and pushing your foot down on the gas pedal harder than you needed to. Soon you come to a stop in front of your house and just sit there in the driver’s seat with the car off. You close your eyes, look down at your lap, and scream. You yell in frustration, not really caring if there are people outside the car that could hear you. 

“How dare he? How could he? How… is this possible?” You think to yourself, feeling your balled up hands shaking on your thighs.

You take a deep breath, unbuckle your seatbelt, grab your things and step outside. The cool air of the morning hits you and it only makes you frown more, realizing you left your jacket behind at that stupid place. You weren’t going back, fuck the jacket, it’s not worth it.

“What am I going to do?” You say to yourself quietly, feeling your anger deflate into sadness.

You felt hopeless all of a sudden, at this point it was pretty much a given that you would be fired, and then what would you do? No job, barely any savings, no back-up plan, how would you pay rent? You don’t want to have to ask to move back in with your parents, not so soon, you wouldn’t be able to take the shame of having one set-back mess up your life like that. 

“Plus what am I gonna do about... shit.” Your thought process coming to a halt. 

You turn to look at your own house, knowing he is inside. You don’t know if that makes you feel better or worse right now, but you start walking up to the door anyway. You fumble with the keys before finally getting the door open and stepping inside, letting your body push the door closed behind you. You lean back against the wood and let yourself slide down it until you are on the ground.

“Wow babes back so soon? It's only been an hou-- Woah are you alright?” He starts to greet you from the couch, before turning around to see you there and sounding concerned.

You push your brows together and stare forward at the floor, leaning forward and putting your hands on the welcome pat you were currently sitting on. You see him come floating over from the couch to be next to you as you look ahead, not responding to him. All of sudden the frustrations and stress all hit you once and you can’t stop it anymore, you’re crying. You start balling your eyes out like it’s been waiting this whole time to come out. You put your face in your hands and let it out, your bag falling away from you to rest on the floor nearby your foot. It feels like it lasts forever, but after a few minutes you feel the tears coming to an end for some reason and the back of your throat has a new dryness that wasn’t there before. You keep your hands over your eyes and end the cry with yet another yell of frustration, just like the one in the car but maybe a little quieter. This one dies out quickly, leaving you feeling empty and even more upset, like even trying to get this all out isn’t helping.

You didn’t notice it while you were sobbing but your left side feels really cold so you look up, and see Beetlejuice sitting next to you with a hand ghosted over your shoulder that’s not actually touching you. You look at his face and see a worried frown and slightly panicked eyes, hair streaked purple just like it was in the grocery store. Somehow, despite him not actually being there, it does make you feel a little better. Maybe the cold helps bring you back to reality too, either way you’re thankful that he’s here.

“Thank..s” You croak out, wiping your eyes with your sleeve.

“So uh.. Not a good day at work I’m guessing?” He says back cautiously.

You can’t help it, but for some reason you start laughing, a few more rogue tears slipping out. You’re laughing maybe too hard for something that wasn’t a joke, holding your head in your hands as you lean forward. 

“Yeah! You could say that!” You respond back sounding a little hysterical, coughing weakly at the end, feeling the cry from before really hit you now.

He doesn’t say anything back, just stays there, and despite him being intangible it does feel nice to have someone keep you company during this. Even if it just makes you feel cold in the end. You sniff a few times, trying to get it together so maybe you can tell him what happened, because you’re sure that would be his next question if you didn’t look so fucked up right now. You take a few more shaky breaths, willing yourself to calm down as best as you can at the moment. You put your hand on your own shoulder where his technically is and feel it get colder instantly as you look back up at him.

“Thank you for being here.. You’re.. A good friend.” You say back with honesty, eye reddened from your crying session.

He smiles at that, but looks away and scratches the back of his neck, “Uh Thanks… I’m  _ not  _ usually, but I really am trying this time.”

You sigh and pull yourself up to standing, watching him follow suit, making a motion to try to keep you steady despite not actually being able to stop you from falling even if you were to lose balance. You take a slow walk over to the couch and turn the tv off before you sit there instead of the floor. He comes to sit next to you right after, watching you as he waits to hear what happened. So you explain, you tell him everything that happened as best as you can recount it. You watch him react with you as you get to the part where your boss completely betrays your dignity and makes it out to seem like you're lying to him. As you do you notice his hair turning slightly red around the ears and beginning to travel up the top of his head. 

“What a fuckin’ asshole!” He finally exclaims once you get to the end of everything.

“I know! I knew he was a prick but I never expected this.. And.. and I don’t know what to do.” You respond with a slight wobble to your voice, looking down at your lap again.

“Well I have some ideas but... you wouldn’t like them.” He says angrily, lowering his voice.

You can tell what he means, but even with this you still don’t think it’s right, “I just can’t believe that he really said that to me… he makes it out to be like I am so unattractive and desperate and.. And easy! That I would never possibly turn a guy down for any reason, like I am so undesirable that I would just take anything I could get or something. So instead of even giving my story the time of day he insists the whole thing is a lie… GOD fuck that guy, I hate that fucking office!” You curse at the end, trying to remain angry so you don’t begin to cry again.

BJ listens to you rant with a frown, “He could _ not _ be more wrong! Don’t listen to him, I bet he just said that to get a rise out of you. He’s a piece of shit and isn’t even worth thinking about.” He insists. 

You crack a small smile at that, “You’re right... Yeah, you are right! But what am I gonna do to prove him wrong so I can keep my job? I still need the money they pay me, unfortunately. It’s not like I can talk to William, reason with him, hell I think I would rather die than explain this situation to him in the first place.”

“Don’t say that, no death... except his.” He says sternly.

“Fine. But I don’t think just... getting him  _ killed  _ is right. He has a family I’m sure, he’s a piece of shit, but I wouldn’t be able to live with myself.” You reason, leaning back against the arm of the couch.

You see him look deep in thought, propping his head up on his hand. You look up at the ceiling and start thinking too, but nothing is really coming to you. You can’t see any way for you to get out of this, you were helpless when it came to asserting any power or dominance over situations at that office, and you knew it. No one respected you and you didn’t have any friends that could possibly back you up, what hope did you have of others believing you or pitying you enough to try to change things when you didn’t even know most of them? 

_ She’s in real deep shit here, but this is my chance, if I offer to help I’m sure she’s gonna free me. She’s got to! I just wish she would just let me kill the guy, it is the easiest way to solve everything! So how else can I convince her that I’m the best option here... Wait... _

“I got it!” Beetlejuice shouts suddenly.

You are startled out of your train of thought but you look over at him expectantly, leaning forward again.

“So, you don’t want him dead,  _ unfortunately _ , but you said before that you want him gone or fired. If you let me take a crack at him I can guarantee that he won’t be back in that office.” He says, rubbing his hands together like a classic movie villain.

“What does that mean, take a crack at him?” You question, tilting your head to the side.

“Well I dunno, whatever you want babe! I can make horrible creatures crawl out from his keyboard and up his arms, latching onto his face like leeches. Possess him and make him strip naked then go curse your boss out for you. Or have snakes explode out of his chest, oh oh or I can light his clothes on fire! Turn myself into a horrifying disfigured monster and corner him in the bathroom when he’s stuck on the toilet shitting. ” He lists off the top of his head, getting more excited and loud as he goes. 

Your eyes widen at the prospect of any of those options, you try to envision the more gross or scary ones but shake your head and decide not to think about it.

“You can do all  _ that _ ?” You ask, looking stunned.

“Yep, pretty much anything you can think of that would ruin his life. If you can dream it, I can torture him with it!” He answers back with a dark grin. 

You are playing with fire right now, and you can feel it. He sounds dangerous and you feel a little bit of fear deep in your gut. But there is no voice of reason ringing in your head like usual, normally you would talk yourself out of something like this within seconds of even considering it, but right now it feels good. You  _ want _ to see those terrible things happen to him, and you want to make sure he will never be coming back. After all he deserves it, he’s a creep and his actions are threatening to ruin the life that you’ve spent years making for yourself. It won’t matter if he’s fired, or moves, or quits, he’ll be fine, just maybe with some additional therapy anyway. But on the other hand, if you let this continue you are going to lose everything, so weighing the options you know what you want to do.

“Okay… I’m in.” You say back in a hushed tone, a little surprised yourself as the words leave your lips.

He smiles in turn, “You won’t regret it, I promise.”

A little bit of that voice of reason returns for just a moment, you don’t care about William, but you do care about your own safety quite a bit. Was this really the best decision, summoning a demon to help you with trouble at work? Wouldn’t it be smarter to just try searching for a new job or something. Yeah, maybe, but that wouldn’t be nearly as fun.

“Remember what I said in the beginning, I don’t want you to murder people. But also, don’t attack me. We’re friends right? Friends don’t hurt friends.” You say slowly, maybe trying to convince yourself of this more than you are trying to get reassurance out of him.

His face falters for just a second, looking like he is considering something, but then he reaches his hand out as if for a hand shake and says, “Friends. Scout’s honor.”

You go to take his hand for a shake, but just go right through it and then look at your own hand for any changes. You make direct eye contact with him then, concentrating hard. You feel intense worry bubble up inside of you but you swear his eyes look honest, so you decide to take the plunge.

“Beetlejuice” You say, watching him start to glow faintly and sit up straighter.

“Oh god yes, this is it, I’ve waited SO long” He says back, desperation in his voice. 

You take a deep breath, keeping your eyes on him, “...Beetlejuice.”

He’s grinning now, glowing a little brighter as his form begins to float up from the couch looking a little more tangible than it was before.

“Come on baby, just  _ one _ more...” He urges, fully up in the air now above you.

Your heart feels like it’s going a mile a minute, you’re staring at him and you feel like you can’t look away. It’s like there is this energy all around you keeping you from doing anything up staring up at him. This is it, last chance to back out, was this really wise? You blink up at him and before you can even begin to doubt yourself anymore, you stand up suddenly and push ahead. 

You squeeze your hands into fists and shout, “BEETLEJUICE!”

Suddenly there is a zap of light in your living room, it’s deafening in its sound and you see the power start to flicker in your home. The lamp behind where he is floating blows out, glass shattering and falling all around in different directions. You gasp at the sudden explosion and he pops into view between the flickering lights, looking fully tangible and real in front of you, no longer see-through at all. You all but hold your breath as you look at him, unable to do anything but stand there and stare in shock. He starts to laugh darkly, holding his hands out in front of him and looking at them. Suddenly he snaps his fingers and the lights are off instead of barely flickering to life, the sunlight streaming in is the only thing letting you see your own living room. Then he points with a grunt and your things fly off a nearby shelf. He cackles, making a hand-raising motion and you watch as the curtains on the window next to you turn green slowly from top to bottom as well as your wallpaper going black at the same time. Then he does the same motion to the couch and the wooden-floor boards, turning them black and white striped instead. He grunts again, whipping his body around and suddenly the TV screen screams to life with static and your cabinets in the kitchen all open and close at once, slamming in a rhythm.

You’re starting to feel really scared, everything is happening all at once and everything is so loud around you. You take a few steps backward until your back hits against the wall next to the window with the new curtains. He keeps going however, sending a lamp flying off a side table and knocking a bookshelf down onto its side. Then you see him set his hands ablaze. He looks down at the room from behind them, fire crackling at his fingertips, and you begin to really panic.

“Hey.. HEY!” You yell, trying to get his attention, but too afraid to get any closer.

He doesn’t look at you, but he jerks his head towards the coffee table and it flips over nearby you. You don’t know what to do, this was a mistake, you fucked up, you’re scared and you’re panicking and you don’t know what to do.

“BEETLEJUICE!” You shout, squeezing your eyes shut.

No sound comes in response, you don’t open your eyes right away, but when you do you see he’s looking at you. He looks dangerous, crazed, and you can’t look away from his eyes. You’re shaking but neither of you does anything else, like you’re frozen. You don’t know what you can do, how you can stop this, but you don’t break eye contact and you follow your gut.

“Beetlejuice!!” You yell again, loudly but still with a shaky voice.

You watch him as the fire extinguishes from his hands quickly and then he’s in front of you in an instant, seemingly out of nowhere without having crossed the room at all. You jump back hitting against the wall and look down to see him kneeling in front of you. What the hell is going on?

“Stop!! Please! Don’t send me back, please I can’t go back!” He begs, his eyes pleading as he clasps his hands together.

“W-what?” You stutter, holding a hand to your chest as you try to calm down your heart.

He looks up at you then, panic and fear in his eyes “This feels so good, I can’t go back, I don’t want to be invisible anymore!”

“You aren’t... you-you’re right there! What are you talking about I… oh god” You stammer out your confused reply before feeling suddenly light-headed.

You try to steady your hand on the wall but you fall downwards anyway, not hard enough to hurt yourself but it doesn’t feel good. You hold your head in one hand and take some deep slow breaths, closing your eyes as you do. When you reopen them and look up you see him there in front of you on the floor, looking at you in earnest. You can almost see the cogs turning in his head as he stares at you.

“That’s right.. You don’t know.. I.. fuck.” He says, scrambling back from you slightly and looking worried again but not meeting your eyes anymore.

You shake your head, trying to keep your thoughts from running wild or from fainting or something at this point.

“What are you talking about? What was that!” You ask, anger, concern, and fear all mixing in your voice.

“It was.. Was nothing!” He tries weakly, moving backward even more.

You damn near growl at him then, “Cut the shit Beetlejuice! Tell me what’s going on!”

He flinches at his own name, which was not what you were used to at all. He lowers his eyes and looks upset, guilty even.

“I… didn’t fully tell you how this works.” He says quietly, refusing to look up at you.

“Well you better start explaining!” You snap at him, getting closer as you do.

“By saying my name three times you have summoned me, that’s why I’m not invisible anymore, I can let other people see me now if I want to. But since you’re the one who called me you can still send me back, it’s not permanent.” He explains slowly.

“I don’t understand, send you back where, you've been here the whole time!” You ask, your tone losing most of its anger.

“The netherworld. If you say my name three times again I’ll be forced back to the netherworld and I’ll be back on square one, invisible just like before and I won’t even be in the world of the living. I could get back out, but it would take a while or I would need to be summoned again to be brought back.” He answers, sounding flat and empty.

You mull that information over, it was a little reassuring knowing that you at least still had some power in this situation. But the way he makes it out to be it seems like sending him away would be terrible for him, so you’d feel guilty doing it, unless you had to of course. But he seems to have calmed down now and despite everything that happened he didn’t actually hurt you. Just scared the shit out of you. But you have regained your regular heartbeat at this point and you don’t feel nearly as dizzy as you did before, so you think the fear has finally passed after everything.

He looks up at you again with desperation, “Please don’t send me back babe, I wouldn’t be able to take it..”

You’re about to say something when he continues, “I can clean all this, no real damages, I swear!”

You watch him motion to the various parts of the room that were completely trashed, taking a second to really look at the aftermath. It looked terrible in here, and you sighed in frustration thinking about all the damage. But if he really can fix it then you are willing to hold in your anger for now at least, might as well see if he’s lying about cleaning up. 

“I won’t send you away… If it’s as bad as you say, then.. a friend wouldn’t do that. But please clean this, I’m gonna go crazy if I have to look at it this way any longer.” You respond hesitantly, trying to stay patient and willing to give him a chance after what happened.

He smiles warmly at you then with eyes bright, you glance up and notice a bit of pink appear in his hair at the same time. He whips around quickly, making fast work of your living room. He snaps his fingers and the broken light is fixed, he makes a few motions at various objects to send them back to where they belong, including nodding his head at the kitchen to make the cabinets stop moving. He points at the couch and you watch it turn back to the original beige it was before he made it striped, then does the same to the floor. He makes a motion toward you and you glance behind you to see the curtains fade from green back to white.

“Wait!” You say suddenly, holding a hand out to him.

You watch him turn around to face you again with confusion before you continue, “I like them, you can leave them…” You say, pointing to the white curtains behind you.

He smiles again and snaps his fingers one more time and the green color shoots through them fast enough to make them blow back as if they had been hit with a gust of wind. You smile at them and then back to him, glad that he’s able to keep them that way. You think green makes the room look a little more lively anyway, as ironic as that is. You see him put the finishing touches on making the room almost what it used to be, then turn to you again for approval.

“Thank you, it looks great!” You say relieved, standing up and doing a spin to look around the place.

“Don’t thank me, I was the one who fucked up it in the first place… Sorry about that..” He says, guilt coming through at the end.

“It’s okay... I guess, at least you didn’t destroy my house and then just disappear without fixing it, then I would be  _ really _ mad.” You answer back with a wave of your hand.

“God it just felt, no, _ feels _ , so good to be back!” He yells, floating up and raising his arms in a victory pose.

You laugh at that, “Well… I’m happy to help.”

He spins and then stops to face you, “Don’t think I forgot, that prick is gonna get his. Tell me where he lives.”

You’re caught off guard by that, stammering out “O-oh.. uh well I don’t know where he lives.”

“Hmm.. okay I’ll pop over to your office then and find out, everyone is still there right?” He questions, coming back down to stand in front of you.

“Oh no, don’t! They are still there but.. I want to be there for it, I want to  _ watch _ .” You say in a hushed tone, feeling a strange sense of thrill at your own words.

His eyes light up then and he flashes a sly grin, “I was right, you  _ are  _ fun.”

You feel bashful suddenly and look away, continuing on with your idea, “Apparently the office is gonna close for a few days starting tomorrow, so I’ll be back there Friday. I can try to go into work like normal, you can come with me, and then... that’s when we’ll get him!”

“Perfect, A+ plan babe! I especially like the part where you said  _ we _ , cause I think we’re gonna make a great team!” He says back with a wide grin.

“Yeah… I hope so!” You say back hesitantly, looking at him again.

You let your eyes travel down his form, it was strange to see him normally and not be looking through him. Without thinking you reach out and go to touch his arm, giving his upper arm a small push before quickly pulling your hand back and looking down at it intently. Well this is  _ different _ .

He laughs then, “Yep I’m all here! Totally real and tangible now, can you believe it?” He says happily, posing in front of you with outstretched arms.

You laugh too, feeling silly for doing that but still kind of feeling like this is a weird dream because a part of your brain is still saying it can’t be actually happening. It’s crazy to think how you met him in the first place, or how your life changed so quickly to get to this point. Now look at what happened! You look at him again now and remember that he also made an agreement for when you two became friends, and you intend to hold him to that.

“That reminds me.. Since we’re friends now. Don’t you owe me something?” You say tentatively, since the subject seemed so sensitive before.

“I can’t pay rent doll, I don’t have any money.” He says back with a playful shrug.

“Pfft, no not rent! You said you’d tell me about your hair once we became level 1 friends, and I think we are definitely there.” You say back with a laugh.

He looks nervous then and his eyes dart away, “Well… I know what I said, but how about this instead. If you see a different color on me you can ask what it is and I’ll tell you then, how about that?” 

“Hmm.. Fine. I guess you can just change the terms of the deal after the fact, cause that’s totally fair.” You say with a roll of your eyes.

“Oh you know it babe, I’m all about fairness.” He says jokingly.

“I’ll keep a sharp eye out then for any changes! Does green count, what does green mean?” You respond, pointing up at him.

“I’m not sure that counts, but I’ll tell you anyway. My hair is green normally, it just means I’m content or neutral, it might get brighter when I’m happy though.” He says back sounding a little hesitant.

“Ohhh so it’s like an emotion thing?” You ask, curiosity evident.

“Yeah I guess so..” He says back as he rubs the back of his neck, averting his eyes.

You look up to check his hair now in case it’s gonna change but then he snaps his fingers and he’s suddenly wearing a dark grey hat with the word “Guide” on the front of it. 

“Hey no fair!” You yell back, slapping him on the arm and flinching away slightly when you actually make contact, since you’re still not used to it.

“Well I can’t have you seeing too many all at once, that wouldn’t be fair to me!” He says in return, floating up out of your reach to dash any hopes you had of snatching the hat off of him.

You huff, “Fine. Be that way! I don’t need to see the other colors anyway...” You pause before revealing a sly smile of your own and continuing, “Cause I can already tell green is gonna be my favorite” You say mostly to tease him but with an air of honesty, because now that you know it’s based on emotion it seems pretty obvious what purple meant, and why would you want him to be sad?

You look up from your position and you can almost catch a glimpse of his hair changing but he reaches up and pulls the hat down further to block it from your vision. You gauge his reaction and he looks what you guess is embarrassed but also happy, so you assume he probably liked the compliment. This was pretty fun for you, all those times he teased you about something can now finally be used in reverse! You wonder what color the hair was from your previous statement because you guess that when you find out you’ll know the color for being embarrassed, which is an exciting prospect. You go to take a seat on the couch and he comes back down slowly, still wearing the hat. Once you sit you look over and take in the green curtains hanging on either side of your window. It is a nice color, it really does tie the room together now that you look at them from afar. They are going to remind you of the decision you made today, and then you’re left wondering if you really made the right one, because despite everything it definitely feels right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So that was ride! Hope you liked it! Also one of my commenters, DrPenelope, suggested I make a playlist for the story, so I did! 
> 
> It's here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5rq6cBqpKzRf2sztC39h5k?si=ZZ09CjDwQwKMGvR2_y99ag
> 
> I used mostly songs that the characters would listen to, and a few that I think sums up their dynamic well, but I also put in a few that I have had on while writing. (You can tell cause they don't match the rest lol)
> 
> Thank you again for reading, say tuned for chapter 7!


	7. Lookout

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again! I was told that long chapters are good and people liked them so I have decided to just go apeshit from now on I guess. Also I think I forgot to say the last time I did it but a horizontal line means a perspective switch, so it goes from reader to Beej, for however long. Enjoy!

The house is quieter than it’s been in a while, which is strange given how this day has gone so far. You and Beetlejuice are both sitting on the couch in comfortable silence, just sharing the space together. It feels weird after what happened because now it was more like you had someone actually staying in your house, which didn’t sink in before you guess because he was more like a typical ghost then. You glance over at him and see that he’s sitting crossed legs on the couch picking at his blackened nails, seeming very concentrated on his hands as he does. You open up a little drawer on the coffee table and pull out a nail clipper for him, turning towards him and holding it out.

“Here do you want to use this?” You ask, offering the clippers.

He takes it to inspect, then fumbles with the small metal sliding parts in his large hands, “Nah, I have no intention of making them look nice.”

He hands them back not long after taking them, and you put them away. You stand and stretch, turning around to look at him again. He takes a second to notice you and then smiles up at you from his position still on the couch.

“What’s up babe?” He questions.

“We got a few days of waiting ahead of us, and frankly I’m starting to get bored already, so why don’t we do something fun?” You say in return.

“I thought you’d never ask! What are we doing?” He says excitedly, hopping off the couch.

“Well you wouldn’t shut up about your powers before, and now you got ‘em back, so I was hoping you’d show me some! Uh.. the non-destructive ones please!” You respond, gesturing to your living room at the end.

“Yesss!! I’m glad you clarified cause the destructive ones are my go-to.” He answers quickly, running to the other side of the room right after.

You watch him go and then take a step to follow after him but he holds his hand out, “No you stay back there, you’re gonna love this!”

He rubs his hands together quickly, then points two finger guns at you. At first you’re very confused because nothing happened, you wait a moment to see if there is gonna be a jump scare or surprise, but none comes. You are about to say something when you feel lighter all of sudden, then you look down.

“HOLY SHIT’ You shout, seeing your feet not touching the ground.

He’s standing below in the same spot, holding a hand out in your direction which you assume is how you’re up in the air, “Pretty neat right!” He beams.

You try to move but your feet just swing on the air, you can spin around in place and it’s like there isn’t any gravity. He floats up as well to be closer to you and then you see his hand moving again and you go a little higher, able to reach up and put both hands flat on the ceiling which is amazing since you’re on the shorter side. You push off from the ceiling to get momentum back down and then you feel yourself slowly lowered until you’re standing again on your own.

“That was amazing! You can just do that to other people?” You ask excitedly, looking up at him still in the air.

“Of course! What kind of second rate dead guy would I be if I couldn’t levitate people?” He scoffs, putting on a mock snob act.

“Oh of course of course, how silly of me!” You say back in a snobby accent as well, before you both break out of it laughing.

“I’ve got a good one for ya’, check this out!” He says, coming back down to the floor.

He gets in position, then leans over and coughs, a baseball bat falling out of his sleeve as he does and clattering to the floor. Then he leans down and picks it up quickly.

“Throw me something!” He says, readying himself with the bat in hand. 

You look around and grab the first thing you see that isn’t made of glass, a small pillow from the couch. You pick it up and toss it his way lightly, letting it arch pretty high up in the air. He positions the bat and swings at the pillow, making it explode into rainbow confetti on contact. The confetti flutters around the room making a big mess on the wooden floors and rug. You bend down and go to pick one of the pieces up, surprised once you’re able to.

“Wait, this is real confetti? .. How.. Is my pillow gone forever now?” You ask, confused, thinking the confetti would be a trick somehow instead of a real pieces of paper.

“Yep, and the bat’s real too! Don’t worry your pillow is right here…” He answers back, spinning the bat around in his hands before lifting his guide hat up to reveal the pillow was under it somehow despite definitely not being able to fit under there.

You laugh but are absolutely perplexed, it’s like his powers can just alter reality or something! You wonder if all ghosts can do this stuff, or if it’s a demon thing, or maybe just a Beetlejuice thing. Either way it’s very fun and it’s kind of blowing your mind with how impossible it all seems. You can’t help but look impressed as you stand in front of him waiting for whatever the next stunt would be.

“Better get all this stuff off the ground, wouldn’t want to mess up your living room again!” He says with a laugh, throwing the bat on the ground and snapping his fingers to conjure up a metal whistle instead.

“Clean up crew!!” He calls loudly, blowing the whistle.

Suddenly, the closet door opens and out comes another Beetlejuice, then the same with the bathroom door, and one emerges from behind the bookshelf somehow. Now there’s four of him, they all look a little different so you can still tell who the original is but you just stand there and watch with your mouth hanging open a little in an unflattering way. The Beetlejuice clones come out full of energy and start trying to sweep up the confetti with anything but a real broom, they’re using tennis rackets and pool skimmers and the last one just removes his own arm to use as a makeshift tool. You snap out of the trance of watching them all hustle around your living in order to start laughing loudly, holding your sides as you watch them do their best with what they have. Meanwhile the real Beetlejuice is standing nearby them with a wide grin and a look of pride as he holds the whistle between his two fingers.

“Great job fellas, love the hustle!” He shouts and they all cackle in response.

He blows the whistle again shortly after and they all poof into clouds of green smoke, taking the confetti away with them. It takes you a bit but you recover from your laughing fit soon after they’re gone.

“That was the most amazing shit I’ve ever seen!” You call out once you regain most of your composure.

“Thank you thank you, finally someone who appreciates my art!” He says back, taking a dramatic bow.

“Bravo!” You shout, clapping and making crowd cheering noises.

“Ah yes, my adoring fans, I do it all for you!” He says, pretending to look out at a big audience of people, but really it’s just you and your furniture.

You laugh again then, finishing your little act with him after that. He poofs the whistle away too and you notice that at some point his hat also went away, so you can spy a look at his hair. It looks to be like his normal green color but just a more bright and vibrant version, which you remember he said means he’s happy. You smile at him then, glad that he’s also having fun flexing his powers for your entertainment. Suddenly you feel a grumble deep inside you, then looking over at the clock you realize that it's already the late afternoon and with everything that happened you haven’t eaten at all today.

“I’m starving, you wanna make lunch?” You ask, holding a hand on your stomach.

“I do not need to eat but I absolutely will.” He says back excitedly, already making his way to your kitchen.

You follow suit as well, going to the fridge as he phases through the pantry door. Inside the fridge you rummage for all the things you need to make a sandwich, then pull them out and put them on the nearby counter. All you need now is the bread, so you head over to the pantry as well. Somehow, after all this time, you still don’t see it coming when you open the pantry and he pops out at you making you yell and stumble backward.

“You’re such a jerk!” You exclaim, embarrassed that it keeps working on you every time.

He’s just laughing in return, still standing in the doorway to where the bread you need is. You step forward then and bump straight into him, your chest knocking against the front of his body before you stumble back again. Somehow you had forgotten that he was really there now, so you can’t just walk through him when he gets in your way anymore. You look up at him embarrassed and see that he’s trying to hide that he’s laughing at you, holding a hand in front of his mouth as if it will block you from seeing the big grin he has on.

“I forgot okay! Don’t make fun of me!” You fight, just standing there since he’s still in your way.

“No worries I’m not making fun of you, I have no problem with you pressing up against me.” He shoots back in his usual flirty ways.

It hits different now that you can actually touch each other and you feel like your face might be heating up, because you are embarrassed and for no other reason. But he’s still in your way so you just walk away back to the counter with your food on it to start unwrapping things and then grab a plate.

“Just get me the bread that’s in there for my sandwich please.” You reply now that you’re not facing him anymore.

You hear him snicker before retreating into the pantry, then emerging again after a moment, “Babe let’s make brownies!” He calls, holding the box up in one hand and your bread in the other.

You take the bread from him and look at the box of brownie mix, “Sure, why not!” You reply happily.

“Hell yes.” He says, ripping the top of the box open and pulling out the bag with all the chocolate powder mix inside.

You see he is about to open that too when you turn around and stop him, “Hey what are you doing we need a big bowl first, and a mixing spoon.” You glance down at the bag and see the green splotches on his hands as you do, “Oh my god, please wash your hands!” You add after.

“Wash my hands? That’s for the living. I'm not doin’ that” He responds, plopping the bag of mix down and going into the right cabinet to grab a large blue bowl.

How did he know which cabinet that was in? You pull a drawer open and get a big wooden spoon ready as well.

“You absolutely are, because I’ll be eating these too.” You insist, walking over to the sink and running the water.

“But babe it’s taken me years to achieve this level of grime!” He fights, holding his hands up to show his work.

“Well how important are these brownies to you? Cause I’m not letting you make them like that.” You respond, running your own hands under the water to wash them.

“Pretty important.. But how could you stop me, I’m the one with all the powers remember?” He shoots back, acting smug.

You dry your hands on a towel hanging nearby, not having considered how you could make him do things your way since your last line was entirely a bluff. An idea comes to your mind and you start saying it without giving it much thought.

“I dunno, can’t I just send you away as you’re about to take the first bite or something?” As it leaves your lips you realize that was probably insensitive of you.

His face falls after hearing it, “You… wouldn’t do that would you?”

You glance up and see the smallest tinge of purple on the front of his hair. Shit, now you feel bad.

“No, I won’t, I’m completely joking, sorry that was not a good joke…” You stumble with your words, backpedaling.

You press on before he can respond, “...Purple means sad right?”

“Uh.. Yeah, sad or upset usually--” He answers, looking a bit nervous as well now.

You cut him off then, “Please don’t be, I shouldn’t have said that… I promise I don’t want you gone. I just want brownies without dirt in them, could you please wash up first?”

You see the purple fade then and he moves to go to the sink before answering, “Alright I’ll do it, but only cause you sweet talked me first.”

“Thank you..” You say quietly, going to finish making your own food.

Saying you wanted him to stay was his idea of sweet talking? What a strange guy. You take a bite of your sandwich as you watch him scrubbing at his hands, he isn’t doing the best job but you figure any amount of soap and water will be much better than nothing. He comes back a few moments later, hands still wet as he stands in front of you waiting. You finish another bite of your food and then look at them to inspect for any remaining dirt. You notice his nails are still dark though, which can’t be good.

“You might need to wash the nails better, they’re still uh… black.” You say, looking back up to him.

He smiles wide, “Oh no that’s nail polish, I do them myself!”

He wiggles his finger to show you, and upon closer inspection you realize it is just worn out black paint you’ve been seeing this whole time, not grime like the rest of him.

“Oh nice! I have some black polish if you want to reapply since they’ve gotten chipped.” You say cheerily, taking another bite right after.

“Nah I like them better this way” He answers, turning his hands around to look at them himself.

“They do suit you, it’s messy but still cute!” You say back with a smile, putting your sandwich down and crossing the kitchen to begin preheating the oven for these brownies.

_ This isn’t fair, I’m supposed to be the one with all the charm, how come she keeps getting away with complimenting me like that. Is this what I am signing up for by finally having a real friend? I better keep that hat handy cause I can’t have her trying to read my hair like a damn book or something. _

You head back to the fridge and pull out the additional ingredients needed to turn the powder into an actual baked good, handing him a carton of eggs and the jug of milk. Then you hit up the pantry for some vegetable oil last. You finish up your sandwich as you watch Beetlejuice make an absolute mess of the mixing bowl and counter, pouring milk in too quickly and splashing it, letting some raw egg slide down the side of the bowl as he cracks a few of them. This is going as well as you figured it would with him as your baking partner, so you take the bowl next and start mixing the batter together and let him do the task of greasing up the pan while you do. You take a bit to get it to the consistency that it should be, extra thick, and look over at him to see him put the fully greased pan down on the stove top and then lick the vegetable oil off his fingers.

“You are nasty.” You say earnestly.

“Thank you!” Comes his reply with a beaming smile.

You just roll your eyes at that, giving the batter a few more good stirs before walking over to the stove top now that the pan is ready. You pour the brownie sludge carefully and he holds the edges of the pan so it doesn’t slide anywhere while you’re doing it. Once it’s in you give the pan a good sideways shake to settle the batter evenly and get any air pockets out, then it’s finally ready to go into the oven.

“Throw that in the oven for me while I put everything back.” You tell him, before turning around to grab the milk and eggs.

You hear the sounds of him getting the brownies into the oven behind you as you put stuff back in the fridge, re-organizing a bit so that the milk fits better and doesn’t look like it’s going to fall forward out of the fridge at any moment. Once you’re done you walk back over and turn the oven light on to look inside at the batter, it looks good and pushed back far enough in there so you pull out your phone.

“Okay I got a timer for 30 minutes, they should be just right by then! What do we do now?” You say to him as you’re setting it up on your phone, looking up once you get to your question.

“I have another cool power to show you! Follow me.” He answers, starting to walk out of the kitchen.

You walk after him, excited for whatever the next trick would be. He goes out into the middle of the living room and then turns around and holds his hand to his chin. He looks up thoughtfully, as if trying to make a decision about something you don’t know yet. He smiles suddenly, seeming to have gotten his answer, as you walk up to stand beside him.

“Okay I got it, this’ll be great! But you have to trust me.” He says, looking to you tentatively.

“I trust you.” You say easily, feeling a little surprised at your own lack of hesitation and by the way his eyebrows raise you think he is too.

“Amazing, okay make sure you don’t let go.” He says with a smile, holding out his upturned hand to you.

You look at his hand, unsure for a second at his last line, “...Why, what’s going to happen?” You question.

“If I tell you then you’ll be more scared, just go with it.” He answers honestly.

You take a look at him and then to the hand he’s offering, you did say you trust him but you are a little nervous. He hasn’t killed you yet so you doubt he’s going to at his point, and the only way to find out what he means is to just go with it, so you gulp down the nerves and reach out to take his hand. Once your hand slips into his he grips it tightly and then it’s like there is a strong rush of wind all around you. You look around and can see moving shapes, but everything is blurry like it’s far away or moving very fast. You look down then and it looks like your feet are floating on nothing with things moving far below you very quickly. You yelp at the sight, feeling like you’re going to plummet downwards any second. You jump forward to huddle into his side and hold on for purchase, lifting your head back up from staring below you. You feel his other hand hold on your arm then, suddenly there is a heavy pressure all around you as if you’re underwater, another big rush of wind, and then it’s over. 

At some point during that you squeezed your eyes shut and haven’t opened them since, you feel like you have stopped moving but you decide to keep steadying your breathing rather than check.

“Hey we made it, you good babe?” He asks from right above you, feeling his chest move slightly when he talks you realize neither of you have let go of the other.

You open your eyes then, glance up at him and take a shaky step backwards, letting his hands leave you. Looking around briefly, you seem to be in nature somewhere? You look down and check yourself thoroughly, making sure everything is still attached to you, and there is the ground that you love so much underneath your feet. Finally you look up at him fully, eyes wide from experiencing whatever that just was.

“What.. was that?” You ask, visibly shaken.

“That’s what it’s like when I travel somewhere instantly, it’s kinda like teleporting? I figured it would be hard on you, but I’ve done it for thousands of years so I’m used to it by now.” Comes his reply as he takes a step closer to you.

He continues then, “You okay?”

“I think so? I’m glad I didn’t throw up..” you say, looking at your feet and recalling how high up it looked like you were.

“Afraid of heights?” Comes his follow up question.

“Yeah kinda… afraid of falling mostly?” You respond, looking a little embarrassed.

“That’s fair, it’s a common one, uh.. sorry about that” He says with a small laugh.

You just wave it off, as if to say don’t worry about it. You don't want to tell him this, since he would just use it as an excuse to flirt with you, but it did make you feel much more secure to be held while it happened. You take a second to actually look around then, seeing a nature trail in front of you, and what appears to be a large hillside. Then you turn around from him and see a small flat area with fencing surrounding it, looking out at your smaller town and a few neighboring ones plus the city in the far background.

“Oh wow.. So pretty... is this a lookout point?” You say in awe, starting to walk forward to get a better look.

“Yeah! It looks over your place, and a couple others, I found this by accident a while back cause the first graveyard I popped up in around here was nearby this big hilltop. I floated up the trail looking for people and found this instead.” He explains, coming up next to you as you approach the wooden fencing.

“It looks really great around this time, I didn’t even know this was here!” You say excitedly, leaning over the fence and staring out at all the tiny houses with their lights on. It makes everything look bright despite the afternoon drawing to a close to make way for the evening.

Neither of you say anything for a bit, just watching the towns below and the small moving cars while next to each other. Beetlejuice hops up onto the fence to sit on it instead of standing, and you follow suit, ignoring the somewhat steep drop beyond the railing which leads down the hill. You hear the faint roar of a plane going over head and look up to see it going across the quickly darkening sky.

“Makes me feel really small…” You say quietly, almost to yourself.

“Yeah... there’s a whole lotta world out there, we’re just livin’ in it.” He says, swinging his legs a little.

“Or dying in it.” You add.

“Fair.” He says, with a small laugh.

You take your phone out then, deciding to snap a photo of the view before it gets too dark to see anything. You line it up pretty good and get a few versions of the same image before lowering your phone down again, swiping away a few notifications from people you’ve been meaning to reply back to but haven’t gotten around to doing yet. You slip the phone back into your pocket then, turning to look at Beetlejuice again.

“So... how come you brought me here?” You ask, propping your hands on either side of you and gripping the fence.

“I thought you would like it.” He says back hesitantly, running a hand through his messy hair as he does.

You want to resist the urge to look up at his hair instead of his face, afraid he’ll put it under a hat again if you do, but you sneak a glance anyway and notice it has little strands of yellow in the front. You decide to store that information for later, not wanting to change the subject to ask him right now.

“He really seems like a human sometimes, for a demon…” You think to yourself, wondering if that’s special to him or if it’s normal.

“I do like it! ...Thank you, this was very thoughtful.” You say back to him warmly.

He smiles then, “Good! Uh.. but getting here wasn’t the best… my bad.”

“It was scary but once I closed my eyes I was less afraid, plus it’s super cool that you can do that and take other people with you too, I can’t even imagine having that ability.” You explain, looking back to the view as you talk.

“Yeah it’s pretty convenient, I don’t use it as much as some others do though. Sometimes I just wanna walk places. Gotta stay in shape you know, be ready for my bikini body in the summer and all that.” He jokes.

You laugh at that, taking a look at him and his overall rounded shape. “A Bikini, huh?” You ask.

“What you don’t think I can pull it off? I see you checkin’ out the bod, like what ya see doll?” He wiggles his eyebrows at you and you just laugh more.

“No no, I’m certain you’d wear it no matter what. It’s probably black and white striped too, just like everything else.” You say as a joke.

“How’d you know? You lookin’ through my stuff?” He says with an exaggerated gasp.

You laugh again, covering your mouth. But before you can reply a ringing sound starts to come from your pocket. You pull out your phone and see an alarm going with an option to snooze or remove now.

“Oh shit the brownies!” You exclaim, sliding the button to stop the sound.

“My babies!!” He shouts, then suddenly disappears.

You get up quickly, looking all around where you are. You take a few steps out towards the main trail and look in both directions, but there is no one around. He’s just gone, you assume back to your house. He’s going to eat them all without you! Suddenly you remember what he said to you in the car the other night, and you hope he wasn’t kidding.

“Beetlejuice!” You yell at the air, expecting something to happen.

A moment later he appears before you, the brownie pan in both his uncovered hands.

“Yes?” He says casually.

“What the hell! Don’t just leave me out he-- Holy shit how is that not burning you?” You start to yell at him but then get horrified by his bare hands on a pan that you know just came out of your oven at home.

“Oh this? This feels great, I’m always very cold so I love some good hot metal!” He says brightly, holding the pan closely to his chest.

“Okay, that’s fair I guess… Wait did you turn the oven off?” You ask.

“Fuck.” And just like that he vanishes again.

“Oh my god, you’re hopeless. Please don’t burn my house down!” You say to no one since he’s already gone.

You go back over to the fence to take a final good look over the scenery, the night having fully settled in now leaving only the lights from houses and stores remaining. It was a great view, you wish you had known about it sooner so you could have spent little trips on the weekends coming up here to relax or something. But then you realize that before now you would’ve been coming here alone, which after tonight doesn’t sound nearly as exciting.

He appears behind you again, this time empty handed, “Alright all fixed, no threat of fire in sight!”

“Thanks, we probably shouldn’t have left them alone for so long.” You say, turning back to him.

“True.. but they still turned out great!” He says excitedly.

You take a step closer and look at his mouth, seeing brownie crumbs collected around and a few in his scruffy facial hair.

“You better not have eaten them all without me!” You say, pointing an accusatory finger at him.

“Nooo… I would never.” He answers suspiciously, averting his eyes.

You squint your eyes at him, “I’m gonna kill you.”

“That threat doesn't work on me babes.” He snickers.

“Don’t underestimate me.” You say back, putting on a tough act as you cross your arms.

“I didn’t eat them all, promise. Let’s go back I’ll show you.” He says, sounding more honest now, but probably not because you are actually threatening.

“Fine…” You say, the act falling completely.

You give one last look at the view, then turn back to see he’s holding out his hand for you again. You remember what the last time was like, and despite feeling embarrassed, you know you’re going to need something more than that this time. So you walk over to his side, ignoring the offer of his hand, and instead choosing to stand close to him and grab onto his right arm. 

You don’t bother looking up for his reaction, you just wrap both of your arms around his arm tightly before speaking up, “Alright... I’m ready.”

_ Fuck she’s nearly as warm as the brownie pan… Maybe she was actually right before, because this is killing me.  _

“...Here we go!” He says finally after a little pause.

Then, just like before, it’s a big rush of wind all around you both. You shut your eyes instantly, not wanting to tempt fate by looking down like you did last time. You press both your legs together tightly, trying to feel the least like you’re falling right now as you hold on tightly to his worn out jacket. This time it seems to go by faster because right when you were least expecting it you feel a jolt as your feet suddenly come into contact with the ground. You open your eyes then and see your own living room just like it was before, you go to detach from him quickly, but you do it maybe a little too quickly. You don’t quite have your balance back after that whole affair so as you try to let go of him and move away your legs betray you and you start to fall backwards instead. You close your eyes and brace your impact, fully expecting that ground you said you loved so much before to break your fall. But then it doesn’t.

You’ve stopped quite a bit short from the floor and you feel his hands wrap around you, holding the middle of your back, you open your eyes again to see him right above you, realizing that he’s caught you instead of the ground. And as soon as it happens is as soon as he straightens you back out and then let’s go so you can stand upright on your own. It seems to all happen really quickly, and you hold your arms out on either side of yourself to help keep balanced.

“Careful there! Uh...to the kitchen!” He says quickly, turning and floating off through the archway before you can even say anything back.

“Strange… I figured he would’ve used that opportunity to say one of his cheesy lines.” You think, giving yourself a small pat down to check that you’re all here after traveling with him again.

After feeling like you were good to walk again moments later, you follow him into the kitchen as well. You come in and approach him at the oven, noticing he’s wearing the guide hat again for some reason, but more importantly, the brownies are still there.

“So you weren’t lying after all!” You say upon seeing the tray was almost completely full except the corner spot.

“See I told ya, I only had one!” He smiles, gesturing at the pan.

‘Thank you, let me get a knife to cut the rest.” You say, starting to walk over to one of your drawers to grab one.

“Already got you covered.” He says, and you turn to see him holding a knife up behind you.

“Menacing.” You reply casually before walking back.

“I am, in fact, very scary.” He says pointedly, then he goes to cut wonky lines into the brownies, making very uneven squares.

You watch on in horror as he slices them apart, making the least presentable brownie batch you think you have ever seen. He keeps going until they are all done and there are eleven left in total since one is missing from the batch. You grab one out and take a bite, he was right, they did turn out great despite not being tended to at all. You watch him take his second piece as you go grab a container from one of your cabinets, returning and filling it with a few brownies for later. You finish your one brownie, brushing your hands together to get rid of the crumbs.

“Alright, that’s enough for me.” You say with a stretch of your arms.

He turns to you with a third brownie in his hand already, “How many should I save for you?”

“I got a couple for later right here, I’m fine. Gotta stay in shape, summer bikini body, you know how it is.” You respond jokingly.

“Oh girl, don’t I know it. But life is to be enjoyed and brownies are good for the heart.” He answers solemnly.

“That’s not true at all. But seriously, I have enough, you can have the rest.” You laugh at his response before continuing.

He looks at the mostly full tray and then back to you, “...You sure?”

You nod with a smile, gesturing to them with open hands to show they’re all his.

“You’re too good to me babes.” He says, big fake teary eyes and all.

You snicker again, “Just enjoy them Beetle, you were the one all excited for chocolate.”

He blinks the fake tears away immediately, then picks up the whole pan of brownies and tilts them towards his own face. He starts to slide the whole batch into his mouth at once like an absolute monster.

“Gross! That is not what I meant!” You yell, hitting his shoulder lightly.

He chomps around a large bit of them and then puts the pan back down on the stove, only a little bit of them still there but the ones remaining are even more ruined now in terms of shape.

“Hey don’t judge, that’s how I enjoy things, fast and in a way that is upsetting for everyone but me.” He responds with a smile, shrugging.

“Yeah I can tell that, but I would prefer that you don’t attempt to wrap your whole mouth around the edge of my baking pan!” You say back, putting a hand on either side of your hips.

“Look, you told me to enjoy them, so I am, only god can judge me.” He replies, putting on an obviously faked serious tone.

You roll your eyes at him, “Did you spy on someone saying that?”

“Yeah it was pretty funny, you should’a seen it babes. They were totally serious too, it wasn’t even ironic.” He cracks a laugh at the expense of the stranger he heard the phrase from.

You’re about to say something next but then you cut yourself off in a yawn, squeezing your eyes shut as it overtakes you with a sudden feeling of tiredness from how long this day has been.

“I should probably get to bed early...” You say after the yawn is done.

“But it’s not that late and you don’t have work tomorrow.” He reasons, leaning against the side of the oven.

“True, but I’m exhausted after everything that happened this morning, it’s been a long day.” You reply with a small frown, turning and starting to walk out of the kitchen.

He follows after you as you do, trailing behind you as you go by the couch that’s basically become his. Looking down at it you get an idea, and gesture for him to wait there as you turn to go to your bedroom real quick instead. Once inside you shuffle through a storage container at the bottom of your closet then check inside your dresser. After a short bit you find what you’re looking for and head back out to see Beetlejuice sitting on the backrest part of the couch facing the wrong way.

“Here I found this for you.” You say, handing him a cloth heating pad with a small cable dangling from it.

He holds it up and looks at it confused, “What’s this, a weird whoopie cushion?”

You snort in response, “No it’s a heating pad, you can use the little controller attached to make it turn on and start warming up. Cause before you said you are always cold…”

He makes a face of surprise at you and he opens his mouth to say something but then closes it again, he looks like he is thinking when you cut him off by continuing.

“Actually wait…” You say, turning back around and heading to the hall closet where you keep towels and extra bedding.

You grab a big fluffy black comforter that you had put away last month once it started to get too warm to use it, then close the closet door and return to him by the couch.

“You can also have this! It’s really warm… I know you said you don’t need sleep, but ya know, uh, if you decide to do it anyway…” You explain, holding out the big folded blanket to him as you do.

He takes it as well and holds both items in his arms while looking at you with wide eyes. For some reason he looked kind of sad? You hope the gesture isn’t rude or something, that being warm was something he wanted since he’s cold all the time from being a ghost.

“Uh, thanks babes but you didn’t have to.” He says finally, definitely sounding a little hesitant.

“It’s no problem, I figure while you’re here you can at least be comfortable, sorry I don’t have a second bed or something.” You say apologetically.

“Oh no don’t feel bad, couches are fine by me, I’ve crashed on many couches in my time and this one is great.” He says back with a toothy smile.

You smile as an answer, you’re about to turn to go to your bedroom when you remember you still had a question for him, “Before I go, what does yellow on your hair mean?”

His hand shoots up to his own head, patting on his hat as if checking that it’s still there and he drops the heating pad in the process.

You bend down to pick it up for him and hand it back before clarifying, “I saw it earlier, I just forgot to ask until now.”

He looks visibly relieved before he averts his eyes and answers, “Oh, ahh, right.. Yellow is for when I get embarrassed…”

You take a wild guess that it’s probably pretty yellow under the hat right now, so you decide to reassure him.

“Hey it’s no big deal, I’m not gonna use the info against you or something, I just think it’s a fun game. Like spot the new color, know what I mean?” You say gently.

He furrows his brows and still doesn’t meet your eyes before replying, “It’s just not.. Something I enjoy about myself. Demons aren’t supposed to be like this.” He admits.

You think about it for a second before smiling, “Well I think it’s really cool, maybe that just makes you a special demon or something.”

He blinks at you and then looks downright bashful after hearing that, rubbing a hand on the back of his neck with a small smile. It looks like he might be trying to figure out what to say back so you save him the trouble in case he isn’t ready to get into more about it right now.

“I’m gonna get to bed okay?” You say warmly, taking a couple steps towards your bedroom door but waiting there for his reply.

“Right, um, goodnight!” He says after a pause, like you startled him out of whatever thought he was having. 

“Sleep well if you decide to!” You say back before turning and heading inside, disappearing behind your bedroom door.

* * *

You just stare at the floor for a second after her door closes. Then you look down at the things she gave you, running a thumb over the temperature dial on the remote for the heating pad. You hold up the blanket, unfurling it and putting your face in it so it’s completely covering you and then let yourself fall dramatically backwards onto the part of the couch actually meant for sitting. You land there underneath the warm things you got and your hat tumbles off onto the floor beside the couch. You pull the fluffy blanket down off your face so you can look at the ceiling, reaching up and running a hand through your hair which you know undoubtedly still has some dusty pink left in it. 

_ I’m so fuckin’ screwed. She’s going to be the second death of me at this rate. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We gettin' soft boys. Sorry no revenge this chapter, it'll be here one day. Hope you enjoy the BJ power antics instead! I took some creative liberties with what he can do, because why not.


	8. Uncertainty

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been sitting on this one for a bit, it was a harder chapter to write. Enjoy!

It wasn’t often that there was a day where you had absolutely no responsibilities, and nothing to do in general. So when your work alarm goes off early in the morning since you forgot to remove it you just stay sleeping in, taking a deep comfort in stopping the annoying sound and rolling over to get comfortable again. In fact since you rarely got a lot of extra sleep your body was probably taking advantage of this opportunity by getting as much sleep as it could because once you finally do get up for good you see that it's already past noon and you haven’t even left your bed. This is pretty rare for you and takes you back to when you would beg your mom to stay home from school so you could go back to sleep in the morning, it almost never worked, but those couple days it did were like heaven. Today was just like that, except you were really hungry and your hair was like a nest from burrowing in your pillows for hours. You make a quiet trip to the bathroom to do all the things you need to do to start feeling like an actual person instead of a goblin and then step out of your room into the living room.

The house is really quiet, and you don’t see the resident demon anywhere as you step through the living room. You get up to the side of the couch and realize why instantly. You hover nearby and see that he is just a curled up mound of blanket on the couch, you can see the back of his head poking out but the rest of him is completely covered by the black comforter that you gave him. You spy the cable for the heating pad hanging down off the edge of the couch so it’s safe to assume he’s laying on it somewhere in the mess of blanket. He seems to be in a surprisingly deep sleep because he’s snoring lightly and you walking around near him hasn’t caused him to stir at all. You come around to the front of the couch quietly and see that he’s tucked in up to his chin with his head propped up on one your throw pillows, a small circle of drool forming where his mouth is open slightly. He kind of looked like a cat, all curled up that way, which is adorable to say the least.

You head over to the kitchen after that, deciding that he should keep resting since he looks like he’s in such a deep sleep. For a demon he looks very peaceful when he’s asleep, and based on the time he’s been in your home you didn’t think he slept much normally. Maybe he didn’t like to usually, but he seems pretty happy to be in bed until noon like you today so maybe he has big sleep binges sometimes and then doesn’t sleep for long periods of time. It must be such a different experience to not need to sleep.

“I can’t imagine not being tired, or getting exhausted after long days. But I guess all his days were the same thing over and over before I saw him, just floating around looking for people to mess with or people who might be able to help him. Sounds pretty sad actually…” You think to yourself, quietly making your way through the kitchen to the pantry.

You decide to just make yourself a bowl of cereal to quell your hunger because that was the easiest thing to do and you figured it would probably be the quietest as well. You grab a box of cereal first, cinnamon toast crunch, because you never stopped loving sugar once you grew up. Once you have that ready you go to grab yourself a bowl, pausing for a moment and then getting a second one as well. You pour a generous amount of cereal into both, then put spoons into each one, and once that’s done you head to the fridge for the jug of milk. You grab it and pour some into your bowl, leaving the other one dry for now, then cap the jug and set everything down on the counter. Looking at all the things you have here you decide to make two trips back into the living room, first with the two bowls, then with the milk and cereal bag. You bring everything into the room quietly, setting it down on the coffee table gently so as to not have the glass make too much extra noise. After everything is set up you sit on the floor to the side of the table, the edge of it being around your chest level, and then start eating your food. With one hand you spoon the cereal into your mouth and with your other hand you absent-mindly scroll through social media on your phone. Usually you like to watch something while eating but this was fine, you didn’t want to disturb him.

You get through about half of your bowl when you notice that Beetlejuice has started to make low grumbling noises instead of snoring from his place on the couch. Moving slightly every now and then at the same time, you figure maybe the sleep wasn’t so restful all of a sudden. Do demons even get nightmares, is that what this is? You stop eating to pay more attention to him, shifting around the side of the table to get a look at his face that was partially covered with the blanket. From what you can see it looks like his eyebrows are tense and he might be frowning in his sleep. His hair is poking out and from what you can see there might be bits of red forming at the roots, which you haven’t seen before so you don’t know what to make of it. He continues to be restless as he lays there and you debate whether you should try to wake him, if he is having a nightmare then shouldn’t you? You would want to be woken up, you think, if it were you. So you decide to try.

“Hey… hey B are you alright?” You say gently from where you are on the floor.

He doesn’t wake up or respond, just turning more on the couch and shuffling the blanket around. You lean around to look at him again and sure enough he still looks upset, but definitely asleep.

You try again, “Beej you’re sleeping, hey, wake up.” speaking a little bit louder this time around.

He shifts backwards, the heating pad falling out from underneath him somewhere to land on the floor in front of the couch. You grab it and feel that it’s blazing hot, you check the temperature dial and see that it’s all the way up and probably has been all night. Surprised the batteries inside haven’t died by now you switch it off and set it to the side, fanning your hands lightly from having touched the hot surface. Unfortunately it looks like talking louder also didn’t work because now he’s covered even more but you know he’s still sleeping because you can hear the little grumbles from inside the blanket. You scoot closer to the couch on the floor and reach out slowly, figuring that as a last resort you can probably just shake him awake.

You put on a hand on the blanket mound around what you assume to be his legs and give a small push. He bolts up suddenly, the blanket falling from around his shoulders from the quick movement.

“Stay back! I know how to use this!” He yells, suddenly raising a hand with a frying pan in it that you don’t think was there before.

You cover your mouth with your hand, not wanting to laugh at his expense, but the scene in front of you is making it incredibly hard not to. He looks down at you on the floor then, holding the pan up and looking very startled at your presence. Your left hand is still on the blanket around his leg and you’re smiling behind your right hand as you look up at him.

“Oh, you’re.. You’re not. Um.. Hiya Babes how’s it goin’?” He stumbles on his words, disappears the pan from his hand quickly, and then tries to appear casual.

You see the bits of red from his hair that appeared earlier quickly fade to be replaced by some yellow. You remember from last night what that means so you swallow down the laugh you had to save him any extra embarrassment.

“Pretty good.. I’m having afternoon breakfast, you sleep okay?” You say in response, trying to act like maybe you hadn’t seen as much of that as you did.

“Oh I slept like the dead. That heating thing is amazing, I haven’t been that warm in years!” He says, smiling at you as the bits of yellow begin to fade out as well now.

“That’s great! I’m glad it helped, here I got you cereal too.” You smile back at him, offering the bowl you poured earlier.

He looks at it for a second then reaches out and takes it into his lap, you’re about to hand him the milk as well when he just starts eating it dry with his hands.

“You don’t want milk for that?” You question, holding up the half full jug.

“Nah, it’s crunchier this way.” He says while chewing, bring some pieces up to his mouth using his fingers.

You cringe a little at him talking with food in his mouth but put the milk down and shrug, looking to your own bowl to see that it has started to get soggy from leaving it sitting there for so long. You were sad about that but you don’t like to waste food so you grab your spoon and start to eat it anyway, the cinnamon sugar milk saving the overall taste by far. You finish all the cereal pieces a couple bites later, picking up the bowl and drinking the remaining milk from the rim of the bowl.

“Hey didn’t you yell at me for that yesterday!” He says, his cereal bowl resting in his lap. 

You sip the last bit before putting the bowl down and wiping your lips off on the back of your hand, turning to him, “Well yeah but this is a liquid, I’m not attempting to pour a slab of solid brownies into my mouth like I’m feral.”

“Fair enough.” He says with a nod, lifting his bowl up to his face and literally drinking the remaining dry pieces to punctuate his sentence.

You sigh through your nose watching him do it, knowing it’s probably just to get on your nerves. Once he’s done he leans forward and puts the bowl down on the table gingerly. You stand then, having a little stretch, and retreating to the kitchen to put everything back in its place. A minute later you return to see Beetlejuice is sitting on the couch facing the turned off tv with the black blanket wrapped all around him, part of the blanket coming up to form a hood that goes over his head so only his face is popping out the front. You smile seeing him that way, because it really is a great sight.

“It’s comfy I’m guessing?” You ask, coming back around to join him on the couch.

“Yeah it’s pretty great… oh and thanks by the way, I don’t think I said that before.” He says carefully, looking past you rather than at you.

“It’s no problem, I’m glad it can help you stay warm. Do you want to keep it?” You ask, bringing your legs up to cross them as well.

“What do you mean?” He says, looking at you with confusion.

“Like, you can have it if you want to, take it with you or keep it stored somewhere with whatever else you own” You say, unsure of what he means by his question.

“Right.” He says and then pauses, “Take it with me…” He mutters under his breath.

You look at him now with the same level of confusion. Did you say something that was off? You aren’t sure why he’s thinking about this that hard, looking down and furrowing his brows at the rug. You think about it for a minute, then you put two and two together.

“Oh does he think that because I said to  _ take it with him _ that I meant I want him to leave? Maybe I implied that by accident…” You realize slowly, thinking maybe you should clarify the situation.

But then something hits you. You became friends with him after a while of working on trusting him, decided to help him with his powers after he offers you a great plan to fix your screwed up office situation, which is supposed to happen on Friday. But assuming everything works out, what happens then? You hadn’t thought of this before, but once you’ve both mutually helped each other, won’t he just be on his way after that? He seems to like being around, and acted very sad when you made a joke of sending him away, but you weren’t thinking about the future much at all. Was he just going to stay your roommate forever?

While you were lost in thought for a while you don’t realize that he has gotten up off the couch and is standing nearby.

“Uh hey babes..” He speaks up, his gravelly voice shaking you from your thoughts.

“Yeah! Sorry, I was just thinking too much” You say, looking up to him from your spot on the couch.

He nods, “I was  _ also _ thinking… I wanna go stretch my legs a little and work my magic on some people. And by that I mean scaring them, and chasing them out of their homes.”

“Oh! Okay, anyone in particular or..?” You question, standing as well now.

“No not really, I just mean, I think I’ll take off for a while.” He says, looking a little nervous and gesturing behind him out the window.

You look at him and then at the window, getting what he means. He wants to go out by himself and have some fun now that his powers are back, that’s fine. You nod at him then, swaying a little on your feet.

“Sure, you don’t have to ask permission or anything. Have fun!” You say, trying to sound reassuring about it despite feeling uneasy for some reason.

He looks like he’s gonna say something else but then you cut in again, “Just be careful, try not to get into _ too _ much trouble!” you smile then.

He meets your eyes for a moment and looks a little guilty before replying, “I’m never careful, but.. Don’t worry, I’ll be fine!” He says, still sounding kind of nervous.

There’s a bit of a pause where neither of you say anything before he continues briefly, “Alright... see you!” he says with a small wave, looking away again and then disappearing before you can answer him back.

“Well that was... awkward, at best.” You mumble to yourself, looking down at the ground for a moment with a frown.

Did something happen? Why did it seem tense all of sudden, or like he is upset for some reason? Had you done something wrong you don’t remember, and why is the thought of him leaving making you feel uneasy? You go through all of this in your head as you step back and take your seat on the couch again. You lean back into the cushions and see the blanket you gave him lying there next to you. You smooth your hand over the fluffy material lightly, then pull it onto your lap as you bring your legs up and sink into the couch fully. It smelled kind of like soil now, with a hint of something else. You don’t quite know why you’re upset, but you do know that the big blanket is comforting, so you pull it up onto yourself as you settle into the couch and flick the tv on for some background noise.

* * *

You offer her a small wave of your hand before you disappear from her living room. Taking a long trip to a familiar graveyard that goes by in just a few moments for you as you whoosh through the air quickly. You get there and turn yourself invisible on purpose this time, making a trek around the tombstones once your feet touch down. You just kind of pace around with no intent to go to any particular place, letting yourself wander as you think.

“Okay so.. I ran away, that’s good.” You mumble to yourself, kicking a pebble as you go.

You blow a bit of air out of your mouth in a frustrated sigh, not needing to breath but doing it anyway for the purpose of letting that out. You make your way to a particularly ominous looking tree and take a seat there, letting your legs stretch out in front of you. You look ahead, leaning back and bonking your head against the wood on purpose.

You close your eyes for a bit, your brain taking you back to the nightmare you had earlier, which Y/N no doubt saw you struggling with as you slept. In it you were being surrounded and attacked by some lowly demons from back in the netherworld, they were not much match for you honestly, but the hard part was that the voice of your mother was echoing the entire time mocking you. Talking about how nobody wants you around, how she wished you were never born, how people only take pity on you because you’re just that desperate and pathetic. You scowl at the ground thinking of it, despite having been trapped in the mortal world for hundreds of years now completely separate from her, your mother still manages to plague your mind with all the shit she’s spat at you before.

You’re angry, your hair probably fading to red to match that, which you also hated. You got something good going on up here, but yet you can’t help but feel like she’s right.

“Even if Y/N does still want me around after Friday when I help her, then what? For how long?” You say, bringing your hands together to scratch at your own skin.

_ Yeah sure, she’s being really nice to me. Way too nice, like really I don’t deserve this level of kindness. But I’m sure it’s just because she wants me to help her, it’ll be all over once I do. Why would she want me around in her house once she’s done with me! I mean she said it herself, that I can take the blanket with me, so she knows I won’t stay there. As if a gift will make it any easier to leave. _

You fold your arms then, sighing again as you run through all this in your mind. Then you frown harder and knit your brows together.

“Well, who says I have to go back! I mean, I know what’s coming, I should just take off right now and save her the trouble of sending me off herself.” You say aloud to yourself angrily, no one around to hear you anyway even if they could.

You dwell on that for a minute and then deflate. You can feel the red in your hair shifting to purple instead as you sink down and let yourself lay flat on the dirt below this tree.

_ But I think I’d actually feel terrible for not helping her, which would be a first. Usually if somebody was dumb enough to set me free I’d be out of there in an instant before they could even get a chance to learn how any of my powers work or what control they have over me so that way I could live mostly free for as long as possible. Sure it backfired on me before and I ended up banished again, but hell it was a fun ten years while it lasted. Damn I just had to try to play the long game with her, that was a huge mistake because now look where it’s gotten me. _

“Feeling all… attached.” You mumble, bringing your hands up to block your face completely.

You swipe your hands down your own face slowly, stretching the skin under your eyes down and groaning loudly.

_ Why does she have to be so nice, and have such a… a dumb, stupid, cute laugh, and a super boring really cozy house. And… pretty hair. _

You growl in frustration, looking up at the somewhat dark afternoon sky. It’s a muted blue with a thick layer of clouds traveling across it. You slowly watch them move, keeping your eyes trained on them as you think hard on your situation.

“But I know I’m not crazy... ” You say aloud, your thought process starting to pick up on something.

“When I tried to comfort her the other day despite never doing that before ever and also not even being corporeal yet, she called me a good friend. She gave me gifts, complimented me a bunch… She has been so overwhelmingly nice to me despite me being an asshole at worst and a nuisance at best... but why? That can’t all be a trick, she seems much too honest and pure to be that heartless.” You rant out, sitting up now and leaning your hands on your knees.

You furrow your brows again, thinking hard on the past while that you’ve spent with her.

_ I mean surely she wants to stay my friend right? Breathers don’t just act like that with everybody. People are rude jerks and don’t give a shit about anyone but themselves. That has to mean something right? Shit, I hope so… _

You shake your head then and push yourself up off the ground, looking around for a bit and then wandering some more. Your mother forced this idea on you that you’re incapable of ever having another person care about you, and you’ve been lonely most of your afterlife because of that and the whole being invisible thing, but Y/N seems to be very deliberately defying that. She seems to care a lot in fact, which was kind of scary in a way you don’t know how to describe. A very large part of you is saying to just get out of here while you still can. Just forget about all this, about helping her or staying with her, because you know it won’t work out. A much smaller part of you wants to try, because maybe she really is genuine here, and if that’s the case then you don’t want to pass up having a real friend that you like and who will keep you around.

After what seems like forever of walking around the graveyard that you first traveled to in this town, where you had met her originally, you find the space for parking and think back on that very first ride you hitched in her car. At the time you knew for a fact that she didn’t want you around, but it seems like a lot has changed since then. She is acting different, you are acting different, hell she even looks at you differently than she did before. Something clicks with you as you recall the memory and you make up your mind on what you need to do almost immediately.

* * *

Spending hours in front of the TV seemed kind of hollow and empty today, despite how much you would usually enjoy to have a day off like this. It’s just really hard to have a good time after what happened, the way Beetlejuice acted and the way he left is really weighing you. You swear it’s like you did something to upset him but you can’t fathom what. I mean, if anything, you’ve been nothing but nice to him the whole time since he’s gotten his powers back. Surprisingly even when he destroyed your living room, because you practiced a lot of patience out of wanting to give him a chance and also slightly from fear.

It’s been several hours of sitcoms and courtroom shows and eating nothing but snacks now, you staying huddled on the couch in the blanket the whole time, not bothering to get up once you started to feel hungry for a real meal a while ago. You feel content to just stay like this for however long it takes until he gets back, almost falling asleep a few times as you mindlessly watched the screen because you weren’t really paying that close attention to the shows anyway. You prop your head up on your hand and look ahead, feeling your eyes getting heavy right now as well.

Suddenly your phone begins buzzing on the coffee table and you are startled into sitting up. You lean forward to look at it and see that it’s one of your best friends ringing for a video call which you weren’t really expecting at all. But thinking on it now you haven’t actually caught up with any of them in a while, so you slide the answer button and sit up to start talking to her.

“Hey Vic! What’s up?” You say into your phone, waiting for her screen to pop up as well.

She takes a moment to appear and then she replies, “oh my god, I didn’t think you’d actually answer! You’ve been MIA for a while now Y/N, you doing good?”

You smile at that, glad that she was thinking of you, “Yeah I’m okay, um… kind of a lot of shit has happened since we last talked. Sorry for disappearing, it’s been one stressful time after another lately.”

“Okay well spill it then girl, you know I’m here to listen.” Victoria says back and in the video screen you see her lean back in her bed against a big stack of pillows.

So you do, you explain about how your neighbor died and that you went to her funeral. You talk about the latest installment with William the creeper at the office, giving her all the details of his bullshit, and then you get to how your asshole boss decided to handle the situation. You talk about all of this while conveniently leaving out Beetlejuice from all the stories. Figuring that trying to explain that you can see dead people sometimes, and that you summoned a demon who you also befriended and are now living with was too much for one phone call, or maybe it was too much at all times actually.

“What the fuck!! He really said that shit to you?” She shouts on her end, jostling the phone and messing up the camera for a bit.

“Yeah! I couldn’t believe it either!” You yell back, sitting up more now.

“God, what a complete asshole from dipshit city he is… So what are you gonna do? Will you look for another job?” She asks, getting serious now.

You go to reply but then stop. Looking down and not really knowing how to proceed, you couldn’t just tell her your plan, but you need some valid excuse for trying to make it work at that terrible place. She wouldn’t let you go through with it if you tried to convince her that you were just gonna hope for the best and not try to solve the issue, so you do what you can and you start to craft a half lie to tell her instead.

“Well I’m gonna have my friend meet William and try to talk some sense into him, I figure if he won’t listen to me then maybe he’ll be a decent person once he’s uh… intimidated a little bit. You get me?” You answer hesitantly, feeling bad that you can’t tell her the real truth.

“Ah I see, so you’re gonna get him jumped and then warn him to back the fuck off. I like it, that’s very bold, I didn’t take you as the type to do that.” She says, sounding oddly proud.

You pause a moment, “Yeah, you know, I don’t think I was, until recently.”

“So who’s this friend? You didn’t mention knowing anybody that well over there since you moved.” She asks, bringing up a good point that you definitely didn’t cover in your lie.

“He.. uh, I met him… at the funeral.” You stumble out, not the best execution but you hope she buys it anyway.

“Oh that’s kind of depressing, but I’m glad you met someone who’s gonna help you, cause you know damn well if I had the money I would fly over there and beat the shit out of him myself.” Vic makes a point of hitting her fist into her other palm for emphasis at that, having propped the phone up on her nightstand at this point.

You laugh at that, glad that she would have your back if she could, “Thanks, I appreciate that, I know you would too.”

“That’s right, no one crosses my friends and gets away with it. Especially not creeps with no concept of boundaries or human decency.” She says sternly.

She pauses for a second and then keeps talking, “So this friend of yours, what’s his name?”

You panic then, reaching for the first thing that comes to mind, “B- .. BJ.” You stumble.

She laughs loudly then, “His name is Blowjob!”

You laugh too, the first time you called him that he made pretty much the same joke.

“What’s it stand for, is that a nickname?” She continues, a curiosity that is making you really stressed.

“Uh, no that’s the real thing. His mom um..” You pause then, remembering what he said about his own mother, “She’s kind of a piece of work, and she named him that with no remorse for how other kids would treat him at school, haha…”

‘What, have you met her?” She says confused.

“Oh.. uh no, he was just talking about her and--” You go to say, sounding unsure.

“Wait, are you two dating or something” She cuts you off to ask. 

“No! I… we can’t uh, he’s--” A ghost, a demon, dead, your roommate?

“He’s taken.” You settle on, not sounding very convincing even to yourself.

“Ohhhh-kay.” She draws out, then squints at you.

You feel very nervous suddenly, not just from lying to your friend but because it looks like she isn’t even believing you on top of that. It was probably showing on your face, which gives you a strange sense of understanding for Beetlejuice right now since he has his emotions on display with his hair too.

She continues when you don’t answer for a bit, “...Do you  _ want _ to date him?”

You kind of feel like you’re gonna pass out. How were you going to answer that? Date him! He’s a demon, she doesn’t know that, but still. The living and the dead don’t date each other, hell, they usually don’t even interact as far as you knew up until recently. You can’t say any of that, or she’ll think you’re crazy. I mean, you could just say no, that’s easy.

“I… don’t know.” You hear yourself say.

She looks at you weird then, and then puts the phone screen down for a second. You hear some distant talking on her end, and then she comes back a moment later.

“Hey sorry, ma’ was letting me know that she needs my help with dinner. But before I go, are you okay? You seem off…” She explains, and then questions you again.

You hesitate before answering, “Yeah I’m okay, sorry, I’ve just had a lot on my mind today, that’s my bad for acting strange.”

“It’s all good man, don’t sweat it. And hey, maybe he’ll break up soon or something, then you can give it a shot and see how you feel!” She replies cheerily, standing up from her bed in the camera screen and looking to be walking somewhere.

You feel like you’re visibly sweating, but you can’t be sure, “Y-yeah.. Maybe! I need to get going too, I should probably start on our dinner now--”

She cuts you off then, “Our?”

You mentally slap yourself in the face, “My I meant! My dinner, haha, I’m just... not feeling well today, can’t even talk straight. Gotta go now, thanks for catching up, it’s been really fun. Love you!” You ramble out, trying your best to not look crazy here, then you hang up quickly at the end, not giving her much time to reply.

You see the end call screen on your phone and you stare at it for a while, slowly putting your phone back down on the table.

“What… WAS THAT!” You yell loudly at the ceiling, sinking down into the couch and looking straight up.

From the TV in the room you can hear Judge Judy loudly yelling at one of the people in court, calling someone out on their bullshit probably. Meanwhile you just stay laying on the couch, staring up at the ceiling. You pull the blanket back up onto yourself until you’re huddled inside again and just scowl at nothing.

“Why didn’t I just say no, It’s not difficult! ...Lying is hard, that’s all, I was under a lot of pressure and I panicked.” You think to yourself, frowning.

How come it didn’t sound true even in your own head, that’s ridiculous. It’s not like you were actually considering it, I mean it’s just like you were thinking before, he is a dead guy. A dead guy that you summoned in order to mutually benefit one another. But, you weren’t lying to her when you said that he’s your friend. He is and despite everything he has actually been a pretty good friend, someone who has been really fun to be around and has helped you a bunch, and made your life a lot more exciting.

Your mind wanders back to earlier, the way he was acting and the way that you might have implied you wanted him to leave. You frown again, looking over at the clock you see that it has gotten pretty late and it was already dark out. You feel a sting of worry at that, since he left so long ago.

“It’s not a big deal, I’m sure he’s just gotten carried away with scaring someone or something.” You mumble unsurely to yourself, pulling the blanket up over your mouth.

A part of you worries that he intended to take off for good, and won’t be coming back. But he wouldn’t do that right? You guys had a deal, he is supposed to help you on Friday. You remember asking yourself what’s going to happen after this, what the future holds in this situation. At the time you weren’t sure, and right now you aren’t either, because you thought he would probably leave after helping you. But now your mind won’t shut up about how he’s already left, and won’t be helping you at all or showing up ever again. After all he is a demon, who you didn’t meet that long ago, what reason did he have to keep a deal made completely in faith with nothing binding him to it. Was it stupid of you to think that maybe you guys had become real friends and that he actually cared about you too?

You force your eyes closed and feel like you want to scream again just like the other day. This was all too much and right now you can’t stop thinking about how much you want him to come back. He might be a ghost but he was your first real friend in a long time that you could actually spend physical time with, hang out with, and he showed you a lot of new experiences you would never have even known before. Plus he was weirdly thoughtful in his own way, and really interesting, and fun, and a lot of other things that you never expected a demon to be. Why did emotions have to be so difficult?

You sigh heavily now, curling into a ball with the blanket you tried to give him wrapped around you. It still smells like fresh soil after it rains, like he does. Maybe it’s clouding your judgement, or maybe you really are crazy, just like you said all those times. Or some other excuse is at play here, because the only thing you can decide on for sure right now is that after you’ve spent all this time with him you know you don’t want to be alone anymore. When he first started living in your house of his own accord you were nervous about it, weren’t ready to be having a roommate, especially not a dead one. But now that you’ve gotten used to things and you look forward to spending time with him everyday you didn’t want it to end so suddenly, you haven’t even gotten to say goodbye!

Thinking about that made you want to start crying, but you don’t. You think back to when he used one of his powers to travel you both to the lookout point yesterday, he asked you to trust him and you did. You still do. Your mind is clouded with worry and endless thoughts that you can’t make go away but a part of you is still holding onto that trust, and you use it to will away as many of the other bad thoughts as you can. You make eye contact with the clock across from you, it’s not that late yet, he still has plenty of time until the end of the day, or even all of the next day to come back before Friday. So you try to calm down for now, and hold out hope that he isn’t just going to abandon you. Despite the relative earliness in the night, and the angry growl in your stomach, you let yourself start to nap on the couch as you wait. Thinking as you close your eyes that you’re sure he’ll be back soon, he has to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys can have a little sadness and fear of abandonment, as a treat ;)


	9. A New Idea

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woo! We're going to get into the double digits with the chapters soon, how exciting!

**Knock Knock Knock.**

You roughly tap your knuckles against the wooden door in front of you, getting into position quickly. It takes a bit after knocking probably because the sound woke them up in the middle of the night, when the door finally does open a tall man steps forward looking very confused and on edge.

“H-Hello, who are you and what the hell are you doing here so late?” He says back, eyeing you nervously.

You break out into a wide grin, “Well hey mister, I just wanna know if your refrigerator is running.”

He scoffs, “Okay yeah, very funny prick, why don’t you get the hell outta here and learn what a shower is, I don’t have time for this.” he spits, moving to slam the door.

You stop the door with your foot and see him look at you shocked, “You might wanna catch ‘em, looks like your whole kitchen is off actually.” You say patronizingly, looking up at him.

There is a rumbling sound from behind the guy as the kitchen appliances you’re pocessing start literally running through his darkened house and towards the door you’re both standing at. The guy screams and jumps out of the way as the fridge, stove and a few counters that have sprouted legs come at him and burst out through the front door, going right past you as you step to the side. You cackle loudly watching him stumble out of the doorway as he stares at them go down the street, his mouth hanging open in disbelief. He spins around quickly and starts to yell and curse at you, screaming about calling the police or something but you weren’t really listening since you started to float up into the air away from him while flipping him off. You see him look shocked and confused as you begin to fly and then you go invisible again so even if others get a chance to see this they won’t believe him. He runs back inside in fear after that so you turn around and go to take a walk along the roof of a nearby house after you see him disappear behind the door.

“Ahh that was fun, nothing beats this!” You exclaim at the sky, walking along the gutter to some poor sap’s house who you’re probably gonna drop in on next.

You’re standing up on the roof poking your head down through the ceiling to look at the area inside, thinking about how you wanna get this house. Just as you’re pondering what fun plan you can use on a space of this size, you get a rough shiver that runs through your whole body. You pop back up from spying through the ceiling quickly, straightening your hands over the front of your jacket. Sounds like someone is saying your name.

You concentrate and you can envision Y/N at home but nothing else is coming to you. You conjure up a watch on your wrist quickly and check the time.

“Ah shit, it’s already 1 am? I guess I got carried away..” You say aloud to yourself, standing up in place.

Earlier in the day you decided after deliberating for a long time that you wanted to go back and stick it out until Friday but you wanted to get up to some mischief first, because flexing your harmless powers was great and all but nothing beats really terrifying people. Plus the chance for amazing jokes like the refrigerator bit were just not possible back at home. You disappear the watch now, not needing it anymore, and scratch the top of your head.

_Well I didn’t realize it was this late, I would rather just wait til the morning to go back, but if she’s callin’ me then I guess I better go back early just in case._

You shake your hands out real quick and then travel over there, going quickly and appearing in the living room just a moment later. You look around a second and don’t see anything at first, you’re about to call out something but then you turn behind you and see her. She’s asleep and she’s on the couch rather than her bed, wrapped up in the blanket that she gave you. You walk around to the front of the couch and take a quick seat on the coffee table facing her.

“Beej.. Wha..” She mumbles quietly, shifting in place.

_Oh... I guess she said it in her sleep then. Aww, she must be dreaming about me! What the fuck, that’s adorable._

“Bastard..” She says in her sleep then, eyebrows furrowing.

You stifle a snicker as she says that, maybe it’s not the most pleasant dream then, but arguably that doesn’t change how cute it is. You never actually got a chance to see her sleeping before now, choosing for once to be slightly respectful by not going into her bedroom while she was here. While she was gone though, that’s a different story, when the cat’s away the mice party or whatever the saying is. You just kind of lean forward on your elbows and stare, which is probably pretty creepy but that’s your brand so all the more reason for you to do it. She’s breathing deeply, a small snore escaping every once and while between breaths. She’s partially out of the blanket and partially in, but she has a section of the black fabric balled up and being held to her chest, hugging her arms around it on her side.

She shifts again and you just watch her moving, but when she goes to turn she moves dangerously close to the edge of the couch so instinctively you hold out your hand in case she’s about to roll off by accident. She doesn’t though, she just turns so she’s facing away from you on the couch now, the blanket fanning out to cover most of her back. You’re hovering your hand nearby still, but instead of bringing it back you reach out instead and then hesitate. Is this a bad idea? Probably, she’s totally gonna wake up and freak out at you because you should not be doing this. But against your better judgement you do it anyway, you stretch your arm forward and touch her hair lightly. Your rough fingers slide through the few strands you’re touching easily, lingering there for a moment before letting them fall back against her head. It’s very soft and smooth, you run your fingers over it a second time and you want to keep touching it but she shifts again and you quickly retract your arm entirely. Afraid that this is the moment where she finds out what you’re doing and yells at you.

But she doesn’t wake up just yet, only shifts again and mumbles incoherently in her sleep some more. You sigh gently, your shoulders slagging.

_I still doubt she’ll let me stay, and I probably won’t see her again after this once she asks me to leave… But fuck, I couldn’t just walk away early, not from her. I should have kept better track of the stupid breather time even though it means nothings to me. I made up my mind that I was gonna come back, I should have just done it sooner. When she wakes up she’s probably gonna be mad at me too, why do I always fuck things up?_

You’re in the middle of quietly cursing yourself so you don’t notice that she’s started to move again, turning back and grumbling more, and then starting to lift her head up. Oh shit. 

* * *

There is a bright light behind your eyelids and you grumble at it, turning over roughly and cursing the sun for existing. It’s too much for you though so you start to sit up, opening your eyes and… Oh that’s not the sun that’s the lights on in the living room.

You blink slowly, coming out of sleep and propping yourself up on an elbow. Right in front of you, leaning forward towards you slightly, is Beetlejuice looking completely lost in thought. Right as you’re about to try to think of something to say you see him dart his eyes down to make shaky eye contact with you and then he jolts and sits up straight.

“H-hi babes! Uh, ..good morning?” He stutters out, looking startled that you’re awake.

You rub at your eyes and sit up fully, then look at him in confusion, “Hi..? Is it morning? Why…”

You trail off, remembering why you had fallen asleep on the couch in the first place. You were sulking and then had a nap so you could shut your dumb loud brain off and stop worrying. But it looks like the worrying wasn’t needed after all because he did come back, and he was watching you sleep for some reason? You lean to the side to look around him and see the time, jolting slightly in surprise when you see it.

“It’s almost 2 am?!” You exclaim, looking back to him suddenly.

He smiles nervously, scratching the side of his head, “Yeahh, my bad if I woke you up, I didn’t mean to come back so late.”

You sigh, relieved that he’s back at all, even though it is the middle of the night. But it’s weird how long you slept, how did you manage to sleep the whole night away like that? That can’t be good for your already shaky sleep schedule.

“That’s okay… how come you showed up this late?” You finally say after pausing for a while.

“I thought you had called me, so I came over now. I was gonna wait til the morning but I didn’t want to keep you waitin’ if you needed me.” He says honestly.

You smile at the sentiment, “What do you mean you thought I called? I was napping.”

“Ah, well, actually... you _did_ call me, but I don’t think you meant to.” He says while looking away.

You feel your face heat up, you said his name in your sleep? You don’t remember having any dreams at all, let alone one with him in it! What else had you said, was there something compromising in there?

Your mind is going a mile a minute suddenly, going through all the ways this could possibly embarrass you, when he cuts back in again, “You called me a bastard.”

The tense air deflates instantly and you break into a loud laugh, holding your palm to your forehead in disbelief.

“I did? Pfft, that’s great, I’m sorry!” You say in between giggles.

He smiles at you then, looking less nervous as well, “Yeah it was pretty funny, I’ve definitely been greeted in worse ways though!”

Your laughter dies down then and you shift in your seat, crossing your legs and letting the blanket drape over your lap. He looks down and then quickly back up, his expression faltering for a second before he starts to talk again.

“So how come you’re out here on the couch when you got a nice bed and all?” He asks, making eye contact again.

“I um… I fell asleep out here by accident while I was waiting for you to get back.” You admit quietly, feeling embarrassed but not wanting to lie.

You see him frown then, a tiny bit of purple coming through in his hair, “Ah shit I’m sorry babes, I should have just come back sooner--”

You cut him off, “No no, it’s fine! I’m sure you were having a lot of fun! You can stay out if you want to, you don’t have to be with me 24-7 or something.” You ramble.

“Yeah but, I wasn’t very clear when I left either...” He trails quietly, looking down.

You think back to when he left and the uneasy way you felt about it, it definitely felt like something was up at the time. Since you have woken up and been talking that feeling hasn’t come back at all and you were very relieved to see him despite it being kind of creepy, but you can’t shake how weird it was the way he left. Something must be wrong, right?

“Yeah um… Are you mad at me?” You ask hesitantly.

He looks up at you quickly, “Mad? What.. at _you_... huh?” He stutters out, sounding confused and surprised.

You shake your head, feeling embarrassed again, “Nevermind, it’s nothing!” you say then, looking away and balling up the fabric of the blanket into your hands.

He keeps going, “I mean if anything babe you should be mad at me, why would I be mad at you?” 

You can tell your face probably betrays being sad but you don’t look at him as you reply, “Well I dunno I offered the blanket to you and it might have sounded like I wanted you to leave? Then you did… Like.. fuck I dunno, it’s dumb.”

It’s not a good explanation because It’s hard to collect your thoughts and you don’t exactly want to admit how messed up you felt all day because of it, since it seems so trivial now that he came back. You were so worried for no reason after all so now you just felt dumb making too big a deal out of what happened. Although you can’t shake that something was definitely wrong before, even if he wasn’t actually mad at you.

_So is that not what she meant, does she… want me to stay? Should I test the waters here? I’ll only lie a little bit, she doesn’t have to know that I wanted to bail._

He hesitates for a while and it makes you nervous, “... I was always gonna come back.” but he sounds almost guilty saying it.

You look up to meet his eyes again and he looks as unsure and nervous as you are. You want to believe him really badly but it’s hard to. Despite the trust you showed before this was still a demon after all, how could you ever be sure? After the path your mind took you down earlier you really need some reassurance, and despite feeling pretty embarrassed and silly you’re gonna ask for it.

“You promise?” You say quietly, not breaking eye contact.

You see his eyes light up as you say it, but he doesn’t respond right away. You’re waiting, feeling pretty immature with the way you decided to handle this, you just hope he won’t laugh at you. But apparently immaturity doesn’t matter because you see his arm moving and you break your eye contact to look down and see that he’s holding out a pinky to you. You smile at the sight, the silliness bringing a light giggle to you as you reach forward and join his pinky with yours in a gentle grip.

“Promise.” He says happily, breaking out into a toothy smile.

You both linger like that for a moment smiling, before he lets go first and you bring your hand back to rest in your lap again, the cold sensation leaving your fingers quickly after touching him. You can feel a gentle blush on your cheeks from the interaction, it was silly yeah, but it made you happy so you enjoyed it anyway. You fiddle with the end of the blanket in your fingers before continuing to talk.

“I guess I just got all caught up being worried, sorry…” You say after a bit, feeling much better now that those worries have passed.

“What’re you worried for, I’m the ghost with the most, nothing’s gonna happen to me babe!” He says cheerily, puffing up his chest with confidence.

You snicker at the line, “No I don’t mean for your safety, I’m sure you can handle yourself well enough. I just..” You pause for a second, frowning, “I got really scared you weren’t gonna come back.” you look at him with sad eyes.

He looks at you softly then, “Aw doll.. I wouldn’t dream of it.” 

_God, why does she have to look at me like this, I can’t take it. I still don’t know for sure if this means something past Friday but I like my chances a whole helluva lot more after hearing that. It actually sounds like she wants me around for real..._

You smile back at him then, glad that you got this all sorted out and it turns out you were wrong about his intentions, that it was just your mind making things up to be worried about. You look up from his gaze to see that his hair is pretty solidly a light pink, it’s growing up the sides and front of his hair, washing out the green you’re used to seeing. That’s a new one since your little deal, you feel like you remember seeing pink before but it wasn’t this much and you hadn’t started the deal yet, so you figure you better jump on it now before you lose the chance. Right as you’re about to say something he catches you staring at him and his hair and suddenly he’s wearing a cowboy hat, you roll your eyes.

“Hey come on! What’s that about?” You ask, leaning forward to point at the new hat.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He shrugs, acting innocent.

You pout at him but he just looks away, whistling nonchalantly to try to prove the point. You reach forward and try to quickly nab the hat off of him but he becomes intangible suddenly, then returns to being solid once you back away.

“So not fair! ...Well the jokes on _you_ because I already saw it! Now spill, what does the pink mean?” You lean back into the couch triumphantly, crossing your arms as you eye him.

He looks really nervous again at that, and slightly panicked. “Uhhh… I.. have diarrhea.”

You burst out into laughter, hanging your head for a second as you do. It goes for a good few moments before you catch your breath and come back down, “No no, seriously... that’s not an emotion, what is it for real?”

He stands quickly then, pulling up the sleeve of his striped jacket and looking at his bare wrist, “Woo boy, would you look at the time, better get in there. Nature Calls!”

You go to protest but then he hustles off to your bathroom, and gets inside behind the closed door. You call out for him to get back here and honor the deal from the couch but he doesn’t turn back. You wait a moment and wonder what his game is here, because obviously it’s a joke and it’s fake, but then you hear him start up some terrible wailing sounds.

“Ohhh I’m dyyinnngg. Again. It’s terrible Y/N ! I’ll be trapped in here foreverrr..” He calls, making some nasty noises to go along with the act.

“Shut up!! You’re gross!!” You yell, standing yourself and walking off out of the living room.

You hear him laugh then from inside the bathroom, but you just roll your eyes at his attempt at literal potty humor. You still don’t really get why it was such a big deal for him to tell you about the different colors, it was nothing serious, and you thought you made it pretty clear that you aren’t out to get him here despite him admitting he doesn’t like that part of himself. But you guess it’s fine, he’s living in your house now so you’ll probably get plenty of chances to figure them all out. You pad over to the kitchen to get away from his bathroom antics and out of ear shot, because you never did eat dinner while he was gone. You go rustling through a junk drawer full of too many useless things and a lot of restaurant menus before he comes up behind you again. You turn to him with a menu in hand seeing that he’s back to normal and even the cowboy hat is gone. Well so much for that, he did make for a funny cowboy while it lasted.

“Well did you wash your hands?” You question, quirking a brow at him.

“You know it babe, total clean freak here, wouldn’t go a day with it.” He smiles and shows his obviously dirty hands. 

“You’re the worst.” You say jokingly, pulling your phone out and beginning to tap the number for the place in.

He just laughs in response, you go to dial up the chinese takeout place closest to you before pausing, “Do you want takeout?”

“I would _love_ that.” he says earnestly.

You nod and call them up, listing things off the menu quickly and then providing your address. They promise a 20 minute turnaround time despite it being the middle of the night, that and them being the only place open was why you wanted to order from them in the first place. Plus after the emotional roller coaster you went on today you were craving some comfort food, and for you that meant the unhealthiest greasy takeout you can find. Once you get everything in order you hang up, and then tell Beetlejuice the arrival time.

“Ohhh can I please fuck with the delivery guy? Please it’ll be so fun!!” He begs after hearing the time it’ll take for the food to get here.

You think it over briefly, “Okay but just do it outside, I don’t want him to think it’s cause of my house or else I won’t be able to order from there anymore.”

He cheers at your response, “You got it! One haunted car ride coming up!”

“And don’t endanger the guy either please!” You add after hearing his exclamation.

He frowns, “Aw well that’s no fun…”

“Tough, he’s doing a good thing and bringing us a late ass dinner so let’s cut him some slack alright.” You say with confidence. 

He mutters a “fine” back to you while pouting as you cross the room to plop back down on the couch, grabbing the remote and pulling up the on demand catalogue to check for movies. He joins you a moment later, sitting down on his usual spot on your right

“How about a movie?” You ask, gesturing to the list.

“Sure! They got any scary ones?” He answers excitedly.

“Let’s see, tell me if you spot something you like.” You ask back, scrolling through the different options on the screen.

You both go through the list for quite a while under the horror and thriller categories until he points out one he likes the look of. Apparently it takes a lot longer than you realized, or the delivery guy was just super speedy, because after you two finally settle on something the doorbell rings. You put the remote down and stand up, he springs up behind you as well and follows as you go to the door. You open it up and take the two bags he hands over, giving him the payment as well as a pretty generous tip knowing that he’s about to be fucked with. You wave him off and say goodnight as you watch Beetlejuice go invisible and float after him, waiting until he has gotten to the car to deploy a few snakes from around the door handle so the guy gets freaked out and yells, they start wrapping up around his arm and getting close to his face. You watch him deal with them for a moment before closing the door and going to set the things down on the coffee table. You pull the food you ordered for the two of you out and the plastic utensils that came with them, unpacking everything onto the table until he floats back into the room a minute later.

“Didja have fun?” You ask over your shoulder.

“Yeah he screamed like a little kid, it was great.” He beams.

“Thank you for taking it easy on him.” You offer, sitting back down on the couch.

“Oh yeah, totally harmless. _Unless_ he is allergic to snake bites.” He says mischievously.

You scowl at him then, worried that it could be the case, but he just plays it off and shrugs like he doesn’t know. You heard the car drive away so you guess that everything is probably fine, so you grab your food plus the remote. You go to hit play but then realize you left all the lights on and that is no way to watch a scary movie. Beetlejuice is ahead of you though because he points at the ceiling lights and then drags his finger down through the air, dimming the lights most of the way but not putting them completely off. After he finishes you smile and get the movie going.

It’s a gore-fest type one, mostly centered on the shock value of really detailed death scenes and things happening to people’s insides, so not the best thing for eating food. He doesn’t seem to care at all and begins to dig in immediately. Luckily it seems like the writer actually went to the effort of trying to put a real plot in so it doesn’t just jump to blood right away, giving you enough time to also scarf down your food. You were really hungry after not eating right during the day, now resorting to eating late at night instead, but without the responsibility of work you didn’t care about staying up. After a good while he is long done with his food and you’re finishing up the last bites as the movie really starts to kick it into high gear, having a character get stabbed through the chest on screen as one of the first kills. It’s very startling, but luckily it doesn’t stay in full view for long so you get past it, putting your discarded food cartons on the table and sitting back into the couch as he snaps the lights to the fully off position now that you’re both done eating.

You notice that Beetlejuice is sitting cross legged next to you and the blanket is off to the side from before when you were laying in it. You reach over his lap to grab it, pulling it across to you and scooting in closer so it covers both of you fully. He glances at you as you do but doesn’t hold it, looking back to the movie and fidgeting with the hem of the fabric with his fingers. Once you have the blanket available to you both you pull your side up and huddle into it, your legs tucked up under you as you scoot in and go back to watching as well. You look back at the screen at maybe the worst time because the maniac killer guy is clamping someone down to be cut in half using a huge industrial table saw, you don’t really want to see anymore than that so you squeeze your eyes shut promptly. You hold that until the sounds indicate that it’s over, and you notice his eyes on you once you tune back into the movie.

After that scene Beetlejuice takes to talking over some of the gorey parts, pointing out places where the editing wasn’t good enough and how people left something in that shows how the actors are really doing the death scenes. He would point at different parts as they went by and explain them, like how it wasn’t a real blade and other things like that. Which was actually pretty comforting during the movie, and made it a lot easier for you to watch. It quickly became more of an interesting way of looking at the special effects and props rather than an immersive experience meant to freak you out. He continued to do that until the movie’s closing an hour or so later when the TV switched back to the on demand selection screen.

Before you could go for the remote on the table he made it appear in his hand instead and went back out to the movie list. You were feeling pretty tired again but you didn’t feel at ease enough to go to sleep straight after that horror movie, which you think he realized, because he backed out of that genre and went to go look for something else. He goes over and highlights a random science fiction movie that is on the home page and you nod in approval so he clicks on it, you didn’t recognize it but you also don’t feel like being super picky right now. It starts up and you try to follow the story for a while but it doesn’t go far because at some point you end up dozing off instead, slumping over to your right as you do.

_Fuck she’s leaning against me. I think she’s asleep. Well… looks like I’m stuck here now, I hope this movie isn’t too boring._

_. . ._

Several hours later you start to rouse from sleep, feeling light coming from beyond your closed eyelids and a dull ache in your neck. You open your eyes slowly to see a dark TV screen before you and realize that you were sleeping on the couch again. You bring a hand up to rub at your neck, a pain forming there from sleeping in a weird half sitting up position and that’s when you realize that your pillow this whole time must have been Beetlejuice's left arm. Well no wonder your neck hurts, you just dozed off on the poor guy and trapped him there, you glance up and see that he shifted to his right more at some point to give you more room and has his arm propped up on the couch’s armrest where he is leaning his head.. 

He’s also dozed off in a weird position, and you wonder if he can get cricks in his neck and stuff like that or if being dead changes how that works. You pick yourself up off of him gently, trying not to disturb him too much, but it doesn’t work because right as you sit up the blanket that was being shared between you gets pulled off him some with the movement and he grunts awake, bringing his head up off his arm. He looks over at you with sleep clouded eyes and you just smile sheepishly in return, feeling a little awkward after accidentally trapping him on the couch with you.

“Mornin’..” he says with a raised hand and a small wave, his voice low and groggy in a way that you immediately learn you enjoy hearing.

You glance at the clock and then back to him, “Afternoon actually…” you add, seeing that going to bed super later made you sleep in until noon again.

“Same difference.” He adds, doing a big stretch with his arms above his head, you can hear some cracking from random parts of him as he does.

“Sorry I uh.. Trapped you on the couch with me.” You say finally, awkwardly combing your fingers through your own hair to get some tangles out.

You also felt a little self conscious because every other day you would have time to get ready a little bit in your room first before being around someone else. Having a bit of time to look and feel more presentable, because right now you feel groggy, messy, and pretty gross. You think about how you probably have a mark on your face from drooling, and that your hair looks like a nest, and it makes you feel even more embarrassed on top of all the other reasons in this situation.

“I could’ve gotten out... but you just looked really peaceful so I didn’t want to bother you.” He says easily, turning to face you now.

You realize that means he was watching you sleep again, which makes you feel a bit flustered because that’s maybe too close for comfort to be doing with your _friend_. Roommate or otherwise. But at least he was being considerate, although you’re sure you would’ve been fine if he had woken you up because then you could have hauled yourself off to your bed instead.

“Oh um, well thanks… I should go shower.” You say quietly, changing the subject away from the sleeping thing to save yourself from any extra embarrassment.

“Yeah true, I’m sure sleeping with me didn’t help your cleanliness levels.” He laughs.

Your face heats up and you stand to start making your way to your room, “On.” you correct.

“Huh?” He questions as you start to walk away.

“I slept _on_ you, not.. with you.” You clarify, glancing his way from your doorway.

“Right.” He says quietly while looking away, and if you’re not mistaken it looks like he is blushing as well if that’s even possible.

_I’m an idiot._

You get into your room after that, glad to be free of the embarrassment of that conversation. You take a deep breath before getting out of your pajamas and throwing them in your nearly full laundry basket. You make your way into the bathroom that goes off from your bedroom quickly because it’s chilly to be out in the open. Once inside you close and lock the door out of habit, then turn around and get the shower running. You make the water a bit hotter than usual, hoping to sooth the achiness you feel from sleeping on the couch a bunch recently. Before you get in you make sure your robe is hanging within an arm’s rest from the tub and you pull up some music on your phone to listen to. You decide on a classic rock playlist, set your phone down on the sink, and then get in the shower once the temperature has gotten to where you want it.

It feels great to be completely surrounded in the warmth of the water, running over you and heating up your skin. You stand in it for a bit before starting to actually get clean, washing your hair first like you usually do. You make quick work of your head, using shampoo and conditioner, before getting some body wash onto your washcloth and activating it until it bubbles up enough. You wash all over with that, rinsing it out once and reapplying new soap. Once you feel all clean you look down at the razor on the side of the tub and consider shaving, but ultimately decide against it because it’s too much work.

You step out of the shower before too long right as _Jessie’s Girl_ starts playing from your phone. You pull the robe on and dry your hands before grabbing your phone and walking out into your bedroom with it, dancing a little to the music as you. You set the phone down on your nightstand to free up your hands so you can towel off your hair and start to detangle it. You bop along to the music and sing the lyrics quietly as you go, eventually putting the towel on the top of the bathroom door to hang dry and discarding your robe to get dressed. You’re almost dry enough so you get on a sports bra for comfort, a long tee shirt, and some leggings that have a hole in them so you only ever use them as pajamas now.

You come back out of your bedroom with your phone in hand, still playing the song as you walk and dance a bit through the living room but don’t see him anywhere. You notice the takeout containers from yesterday are gone from the table so he must have cleaned up, which is nice of him. You hear some noise in the kitchen so you head over there to see him at the stove with a frying pan and a spatula. You come in and set your phone down on the counter before walking up to him.

“What’re you up to?” You ask from over his shoulder.

“I thought you would be hungry, so.. I’m making pancakes!” He says happily, you notice the bowl of batter on one of the cold burners as he says it.

You turn around to go back to the counter and before responding you take a second to yell “Where can I find a woman like that!” along with the song before it comes to end. As you do, you notice that he does the same, seeming to know the lyrics to this song. Once the song ends you turn the playlist off on your phone so you won’t have to talk over it.

“How do you know every 80’s rock song that comes on?” You question, coming to stand next to him again.

“It was a good decade for music.” He responds simply, flipping over the pancake he was working on when you walked up.

“Fair enough.” You say, looking to see that he has a few finished pancakes on a plate nearby already.

“I made this one with a face on it” He says proudly, removing it from the heat onto the pile of done pancakes.

You lean over and see that it’s a scary monster face with horns and teeth and you laugh at it, it kind of looks like a kid’s drawing but you guess that pancake art is probably not easy.

“It’s great! Thanks for the breakfast by the way, and I saw you cleaned out there, that was nice!” You say cheerily from beside him.

“I’m trying to act like a good guest for once, is it working?” He asks, not looking up from the pan as he pours another circle of batter in.

“Yes, you’re doing great. Best roommate I could ask for! Much better than all the strangers I got paired with in college.” You say with a laugh. 

“Roommate huh? But I don’t have a room.” He shoots back jokingly.

“Yeah you do, the living room, duh.” You say back with some extra sass.

“Obviously that won’t work, it’s for the _living_.” He points out, flipping the pancake he is working on.

“Well you got me there, looks like you’ll have to get the bathroom instead.” You say with a shrug.

“Wouldn’t be the first time I slept in a tub.” He laughs, and you join him despite not knowing why it wouldn’t be his first time.

He finishes up the last pancake quickly, flicking off the burner and getting you another plate so that you both can split them. You watch him make his way through your kitchen and go to the right cabinet easily, as if he’s lived here the whole time.

“How do you know where everything is?” You wonder aloud to him, taking the plate that he offers.

“I looked through everything while you were gone, out of boredom.” He responds casually.

You give him a disapproving look, “Yeah, like that isn’t creepy or anything.”

“True, but what did you expect?” He asks, appearing your half used bottle of syrup from the pantry in his hand as he does.

“I dunno, a little respect for my privacy.” You shrug, grabbing a glass of water before starting to walk back out into the living room.

“Let’s be real babes, how private are your kitchen cabinets actually?” 

He answers smugly, following behind you.

“You don’t know what I’m up to, maybe I killed a guy and the evidence is hidden in my kitchen.” You play in return hoping for shock value, taking a spot on the couch with your plate of breakfast.

You start to take a drink from your glass before he responds, “Well I didn’t see anything in there but that would be _incredibly_ hot if it were true.”

The drink was a mistake because you choke on the water slightly from hearing that and trying to laugh at the same time. He laughs and pats you on the back until you finish coughing into your closed fist.

“You’re ricidious!” You finally get out between coughs.

He just cackles again, then pours way too much syrup on his pancakes and begins to eat quickly. You calm down after that and set the glass down, reserving your drink for later in case he has anything else off the wall to shoot back at you. But more joking doesn’t come, you both settle in to eat next to each other, you pull up your phone to look through the news a little bit while you cut up pieces of pancakes with the edge of your fork. Beetlejuice just focuses on his food with no distractions, so his stack is going a lot quicker than yours. You check on your notifications next while you chew and you notice that you have a few new emails on your work account, which was odd given that the office is closed right now. You thumb through them and see that it’s mostly you being added to threads from other people’s issues in your department, except one. One of them is a person you vaguely know asking you to grant them editing privileges on a folder that is stored within your company’s cloud service. That’s annoying, it means you will have to pull out your laptop and get it set up so that they have access to all the files inside the folder. But then you remember something that could come in very handy for you.

“Hey... Beetlejuice.” You say seriously, looking over at him from your phone.

His attention is immediate, and you remember that the full name is still sensitive, “Sorry, but listen to this, I just got a _great_ idea.” You say with a smirk. 

“Go onnn..” He says, putting the food down and leaning in.

“So I just got a work email that I need to go deal with in a bit, but more importantly, I just remembered… Since I’m an administrative assistant that means I have admin privileges on the cloud service my company uses. Which means, I’m pretty sure I have direct access to all the sensitive paperwork that is stored there.” You explain, also moving your remaining food off your lap onto the table.

He nods slowly, “I… don’t know what that means but I’m listening.”

“Well, remember how you asked for William’s address? I think I can get it.” You finish, then wait for a reaction.

“Perfect! Let’s go over there and destroy that fucker.” He says excitedly.

“Well.. that, or, I was thinking… Why don’t _you_ go over there, Don’t kill him, and see if you can snoop around and figure anything out about him. Maybe get some blackmail, or see if you can figure out something specific that scares him, ya know… just something to make whatever you do to him a little more _personal_.” You explain, feeling pretty bold.

He has a dark smile on but he pauses a moment before saying anything, “Ya know… You’re a little bit evil and it is making me _so_ _happy_.”

You smile in turn, it does feel like he is rubbing off on you a bit but honestly something about William getting what he deserves makes you feel a sense of thrill that you never have. It’s probably just the newfound power of having a demon that’s on your side and willing to help you but this revenge is gonna be very sweet and you are really looking forward to it.

“Well I try to be nice usually... But people like him really do make me sick, and with you by my side I figure why not get a little crazy right? He deserves it.” You say honestly, turning to him as you talk.

“He absolutely does, and I am not just saying that cause I love to get crazy on people.” He replies excitedly.

You aren’t sure that it’s true but rather than fight him on it you just reach forward and grab your plate of food again, returning to eat some more of the syrup-sticky pieces left behind before they get cold. He does the same and finishes much quicker than you do, but instead of being done he lifts the plate up and starts licking the syrup off of it much to your dismay.

You shovel the last few bites in your mouth and swallow before speaking up again, “You’re like a puppy sometimes I swear.”

You finish eating after that and he offers to take your plate, standing up with them as he replies, “Well doesn’t that just mean I’m super cute? I mean who doesn’t like puppies, right?”

He walks off and you can see him from the couch putting the plates and fork into the sink. You’re not sure if you’d call him super cute, as puppy-like and excitable as he gets sometimes, since that sounds pretty childish and despite that behavior he is still definitely a grown man. Even if the concept of age and time are weird since he’s a demon instead of a regular human, he still looked like he would be in his thirties or something, maybe even a little younger if he cleaned himself up literally ever. You stay pondering the nature of his appearance and age for a while before he comes back in and looks at you weird.

“Are you still trying to decide if I’m cute, it’s easy you can just say yes.” He jokes, seeing you looking deep in thought as he returns.

“No no it’s not that, I was just thinking, like, how old are you?” You decide to ask, feeling curious enough.

He makes a thinking face as well before he just shrugs, “I mean I’ve been existing a lot longer than a normal lifespan so I dunno how that works in terms of human age.”

“I guess so… Well if you were alive you look like you’d be around 35 or something, maybe closer to 30 on a good day.” You answer, leaning in and squinting at his various facial features.

“Well I’ve definitely looked like this for longer than that, but I’ll take it. Also rude, all my days are good days.” He replies, straightening the sides of his jacket and smoothing a hand over his shirt.

Without even thinking too much on it you reach forward and use a hand to tilt his chin up a little bit, examining his facial hair closer, “Well your beard isn’t actually that full, it’s a little closer to a stubble, so maybe you’re younger than 35 actually, usually older guys grow full beards or none at all”

He swats at your hand quickly and looks pretty flustered at that action, which is weird to you because you didn’t think it would be so unwelcome.

“Hey hey hands off the merchandise babe, at least buy me dinner first.” He says, sounding a little bit nervous in his joking. 

“I just did, last night.” You shoot back easily.

“Oh, well if _that_ was your intention~” He says back, laying on the charm like you would expect.

Something seems less genuine though, like he’s a little nervous still rather than being purely flirty like he usually was. You just smile at him for his attempt though, it was getting pretty endearing at this point. You stand then to go get your laptop from your room, as you go past him on the couch you decide on a whim to ruffle a hand lightly in his hair, not pausing to see his reaction or anything, just stepping off to your bedroom instead. It was surprisingly nice to touch, not as tangled as the messy look of it makes it seem.

_Hey God… or Satan, just saying, I know I did a lot of bad things but do I really need to be tortured, is that what we’re doing now? I would appreciate it if you stopped messing with me, thanks._

You return a few minutes later with a pillow and your laptop in hand, you round the side of the couch to see that he’s laying face down on the couch cushions with a couple throw pillows toppled on him. You set your pillow down to sit on and then put your laptop on the coffee table so you can use it from the floor.

You sit down and open the lid of your computer before speaking up, “You good over there?”

He extends a thumbs up but doesn’t move otherwise, “Doing just great!”

You shrug at his current position, figuring that he’s just messing around. You sign into your computer and then open up the cloud and log into that as well. The loading circle spins for forever until it lets you in, then you quickly navigate to the right folder and assign access to the person that asked for it before. After you get that out of the way you start digging for what you really want here. You go through a folder for all the paperwork that employees have to do when they’re first hired. The main forms and agreements that you just put initials on are all open access to everyone, but you can look at everything else aside from just those. It takes a bit of digging but before long you locate William’s paperwork, where you can easily see his address and anything else you want to know for that matter. But you ignore the rest because where he lives is the only important bit that you care about in terms of him.

“Hey B, I found it! His address is right here.” You say to him, looking to see that he’s still laying down.

He throws the pillow off and rolls onto the ground, then comes over to you on his knees and sits next to you to look at the screen, “Great! You want me to go over there now?”

“It’s not actually that far from here, it’s a town over, I was thinking I would drive most of the way, park somewhere that isn’t suspicious, then you can just head in.” You reply, bringing up a maps website to check the address and make sure it is where you think it is.

“Sounds good, let’s go right now.” He says, sounding inpatient.

You confirm the location, then look to him to answer, “Well hold your horses, like I said, you’re not gonna attack him yet. I wanna be there for that.”

You see him thinking for a second and you continue before he can say anything, “ _Please_ do not make horses appear in my house.”

He grins, “How did you know I was about to do that?”

You close your laptop then and stand up, “I could see the gears turning in your head and I figured you wouldn’t pass up a chance at turning that into a joke.”

He puts a hand to his chest and says dramatically, “You know me so well.” to which you just snicker in response.

You walk back to your bedroom real quick to put on a pair of socks before you come back out and grab a jacket plus a pair of sneakers. You sit on the couch to slip your shoes on before standing again and meeting Beetlejuice at the door where you grab your keys and wallet. He goes through the door but you open and then lock it behind before you both head to your car. You assume the normal positions, put your things down in the center console and get your phone up with a gps app open so you don’t get lost going there. Before long you’re on your way there, you turn the music up and drive carefully, feeling a little nervous about this even though you won’t be going inside or anywhere near William. He hums along quietly to the music playing as you drive which is kind of calming for you for some reason. After a bit the gps lets you know that it’ll only be a few minutes now until your destination.

As you start to approach his house this plan of yours for tomorrow is starting to feel legitimately real, not just like a hypothetically fix to your problems but a real thing that’s going to happen to another living person. You’re not sure if you’re nervous, scared, or excited, but you’re leaning more on it being some combination of the three.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you all enjoyed, sorry for leaving the last chapter on some sadness, but I couldn't resist. This should have made up for it enough though right? ;)
> 
> The next chapter may take a bit longer than usual to come out, for some behind the scenes, I usually write up around 2 big chapters all at once and then come back to add more, edit, etc. So most of the time I am posting a chapter with most of the next one already done, so it's easy to put chapters up quickly. I haven't gotten the chance to do that this time, and I have been busy all weekend with my internship so I haven't started it yet. Rest assured, it will come though, just might be a little while!  
> Thank you for reading and following this far <3


	10. Changes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am back from my small break, this was quicker to write than I thought it would be. (Trigger Warning right below)
> 
> \------
> 
> TW !!  
> Some non-consensual pornographic photographs are discussed and referenced a few times in this chapter, as well as some themes of sexual harassment/violence. It is touched on kind of lightly and not described in detail, but please use caution if this sounds like something that will affect you!
> 
> Love you guys <3

It’s not long before you pull up to the street where William’s house is, you slow to a stop a good way down so you’re far away but still close enough to just be able to see the front door. You put the car into park and quickly shut it off right after, your hands shaking slightly as you pull your car keys out to put them back into your pocket. This was your idea, but now that you’re here and it’s actually happening you feel really anxious about being this close to where he lives. You should have just sent Beetlejuice completely on his own and stayed home, you’d still be nervous but probably much less so, but then you also couldn’t be the lookout. So really neither option is good here, maybe this was a bad idea after all?

“So it’s that blue house up there? Looks normal enough, this should be a piece of cake.” He says to your right, breaking your train of thought.

You turn and see him cracking his knuckles and eyeing the house from behind your windshield, “Right uh.. But like I said, don’t do anything crazy right now okay? Just a quick trip in to dig around for whatever you can find, and then come back.”

He looks at you then, “You having second thoughts? You sound nervous.”

You fiddle with the hem of your jacket a little, not looking at him, “Yeah, I don’t know.. Just being this close to where he lives, or to him if he’s inside, I feel.. uneasy.” You admit.

He thinks for a second before responding, “That’s okay.. I’ll be really fast! Watch.”

You look over to see that he is in the middle of phasing through the car door to go over there but you quickly reach out and grab onto his jacket sleeve to pull him back in, “Wait wait, before you go, just.. Make sure he doesn’t see you, or.. Um, don’t.. Change his house around? I…” You ramble.

Back in the seat now he holds his hands out to signal for you to slow down and stop talking, “Babe babe, I am a professional. There’s nothing to worry about.”

You take a deep breath, “Right.. That’s true, you probably do this all the time. Sorry..”

“Yes but usually I don’t have any particular goal in mind, so if anything this will be even easier. Practically a textbook trespassing if you ask me.” He says easily.

“That doesn’t really make me feel any better.” You say, despite having a small smile after hearing his statement.

“You just sit tight, I’ll be back real soon.” He responds, patting your shoulder before going to go through the door again.

* * *

You walk up the side walk to the house you found out belongs to William at a normal pace, having turned invisible to humans after getting out of the car. You know why she’s nervous, but there really is nothing to worry about here, even if he is inside it’s not like he’ll realize you are in there with him. You get to the house after a minute, choosing to just walk through the closest wall rather than bothering with a door. Once you get inside you see that it looks like a normal guy’s house, pretty empty and not very clean, you assume he lives here alone because the space is on the small side even for one person, unless there is a door to a second bedroom somewhere that you don’t see right away. You move through the house easily, looking around through all the main rooms and seeing nothing particular of interest aside from a discarded pizza box in the kitchen and a pair of pants on the living room floor. After a bit you locate the bedroom and peek in, only to see that it’s empty, that makes this even easier. You go in and start to look around, he has a desk with a computer in the corner, a dresser with a few drawers already open, and a lot of laundry on the ground. You go around the room looking for anything personal, you get to the bed area and see a massive mound of blankets balled up in the corner and a nearly empty nightstand, save for a box of tissues and a small container of hand lotion.

“We’ve all been there...” You mumble to yourself, leaving that area for now since there isn’t anything you care about.

You head over to the computer desk and think about trying to get into it, because it is sure to have some sensitive info on it, but that would take too long. You go through the drawers one by one on the desk itself instead, when you get to the bottom drawer you open it to find that it’s completely empty aside from a single folder of paper with a flashdrive sitting on top.

“That’s promising, let’s crack this bad boy open.” You say to yourself, appearing a small laptop of your own in your hand to open the flashdrive up.

You sit down in his chair and plug the drive into the laptop you have, waiting for it to open up. Once it does you see that there is only one folder on there called “Work Scripts”.

“Pfft, boring, I hate this guy.” You mutter, clicking through it anyway.

That first folder is only housing a folder of its own, with another boring sounding name, and so on until you get like 4 folders within folders deep. This guy is obviously attempting to badly hide something, so it looks like you might’ve hit the jackpot. Finally you open up the last one to find a whole heap of files inside, a lot of videos and pictures.

“It’s all.. Porn. Who is he even hiding this from? He lives by himself he could just put this shit on his desktop if he wants to.” You say to no one, scrolling through the hundred or so files.

Aside from the videos which look like generic stuff you can download right off the first site that comes up, you see that a few of the photos look odd so you decide to open them full screen, a variety of naked women coming up in full detail. You can gather pretty quickly that it looks like a bunch of amatuer pictures taken on a phone of people who are in the middle of doing it, either not facing the camera at all, or the ones that do face the camera have big blurs on them like the person was trying to grab the phone or block it. Looks like these are photos taken by William himself, and it seems like most if not all of them were not with permission.

You scowl at the screen, “God, what a real fuckin’ creep. And that’s coming from me.” but now you get why he was trying to hide it, even though he didn’t do a very good job.

You’re just about to close the laptop and stand back up when you get a familiar shiver, letting you know that Y/N is saying your name from where she is in the car. You pull the drive out of the laptop, then send the laptop away since you won’t be needing it anymore. You hold onto the flash drive though, and travel back to the car really quickly. In a moment you appear in the passenger seat, she quickly turns to you as soon as you do and looks scared.

“Beej he’s back, look!” She says in an unnecessary whisper, keeping her head down and pointing up towards the house.

You follow her point and see that he’s stepping out a car and beginning to walk up the path to his house.

“That’s fine. Look what I found.” You answer easily, holding up the drive still in your hand.

She looks over at you with wide eyes, “What do you mean it’s fine, no it’s not, he’s here!”

You set the flash drive down into one of the cup holders before continuing, “Babe it’s like I said, I’m a professional. I’ve been in and out of people’s houses thousands of times, regardless of if they’re inside.”

“Yeah but, what about me, I can’t just turn invisible like you can, what if he sees me!” She says, pausing just a moment before going again, “Wait unless… can you do that? Could you make me invisible like you did with the floating and the instant travel?”

You scratch at your chin, “Actually, I’m not sure, I’ve never had a reason to do that for someone else… But I doubt you’ll stay invisible when I’m not touching you so that won’t help unless you want to go in there with me--”

“Absolutely not.” She says instantly in a very serious tone.

“I didn’t think so.” You reply, looking back at the house to see that he’s inside now and a couple lights are on that weren’t before.

“Listen it’s gonna be fine, let me go back in now that he’s here, I’ve got one more thing to do.” You continue after a moment of silence, getting ready to go back.

She reaches out again to stop you, holding onto your jacket, “But but, you said you found something, that should be okay, why do you have to go back in?”

“Yeah it’s uh... something, but that will only help a little with the plan. I just want to check some things while I got him  _ alone _ .” You say back, not wanting to give away your idea here in case she thinks it’s too dangerous and wants to stop you.

You go to get out again and she goes to grab you for the third time, “But Beetlej--”

You cut her off before she can get the full name out, grabbing her hand where it is on your jacket and holding it, “Babes.. He has no idea and he can’t see me. And he won’t see you either. You’re safe, trust me.”

You feel her squeeze your hand as you say the last part, which you smile at, you’re searching her face as you wait for a response and it looks like she’s quite a bit calmer after hearing that.

“Okay... I-I trust you. Please be careful.” She finally says in a quiet voice, letting go of your hand slowly.

You flash her a big grin to try to be reassuring before stepping out from the car and then appearing back inside the house. You listen around for him from his own bedroom and you don’t hear anything at first, until just a moment later when you hear some loud noise coming from the other side of the bedroom wall. You walk through it to find him in the kitchen, apparently cursing into his fridge for some reason. You watch him for a moment, walking around the space and seeming to be getting some food ready for himself. Perfect, now is a great time to experiment.

William puts some packaged meal from the freezer onto a plate and pops it into the microwave, then leans on the counter nearby as the timer ticks on for it to cook. You take this opportunity to set the food in the microwave ablaze, the plastic covering atop the freezer package sporting a low but growing flame. 

He notices a second later and shouts, “What the fuck!” He quickly opens the microwave and runs the plate over to the sink, where he douses it in water from the tap.

_ Hmm, not bad but he just seemed surprised, I don’t think he’s really that afraid of fire. _

He takes the burnt up package and throws it away, walking back to the counter to dry his hands on a towel hanging there. You notice a small kitchen knife laying in the dish rack nearby where he is and as he pulls on the towel you send it flying at his hands, you do it at just the right angle to graze him without causing any real damage. You see that his hand starts to bleed a bit, he curses again and covers it with the towel, returning to the sink to wash it off.

_ Nope, not blood either. Didn’t even phase him at all, bummer. That would have been a fun one! _

You float up to him and watch him washing off the cut, trying to think of what else you can check for while you’re here without being too obvious. Even if he can’t see you, you’re sure he’s probably smart enough to catch on that he’s being fucked with and you didn’t need him getting suspicious. He goes to turn the water off and go back to the fridge when you get a great idea. As he is walking past you snap all the lights off in his house. It’s still daytime so it’s not pitch black, but the curtains in the kitchen are closed so it still gets pretty dark.

William fumbles around for a second before cursing aloud to himself, “God damn it. Really? Right now?”

You follow after him as he takes a door in the kitchen down to the basement, looking blindly for the breaker box to switch the lights back on. Overall he just seems annoyed rather than afraid, so it looks like the dark don’t do it either, which is good in a way because that would probably be the most lame thing for him to be afraid of. He eventually finds the breaker box and is standing in front of it feeling around for the handle to open the front panel.

_ Now would be the perfect time for some electrocution. It’s too bad Y/N would probably be mad if I accidentally killed him... I don’t want her to be mad, so I guess I’ll save that for another time. _

The lights flicker back on once he finds the right switch, it’s still mostly dark down here though because the only light is the one coming down the stairs from the kitchen. You take this chance for one final play while he can’t see very well, you conjure a large spider above where he is on the ceiling. It starts to descend until it finally reaches him, disconnecting from the string of webbing it was propelling down on and starting to crawl around on William’s head. He downright screams at the feeling of it on him, shaking all around and swiping wildly at his own head with his hands trying to get it off. Eventually you disappear the spider so it doesn’t get hurt in all that, but he doesn’t know that it’s gone so he’s still freaking out really bad.

_ Ah ha! That’s the ticket! So… Arachnophobia huh? That’s still kinda boring but I can make due. _

With a sinister grin you begin to plan what you can do with that information, as it’s going to make tomorrow’s haunting much more terrible for him. After that you quickly appear back in the car, not wanting to keep her waiting too long since she is so worried about being here in the first place.

* * *

Beetlejuice has been gone for a good while now, he said he would be quick so you’re starting to get nervous again. What if something went wrong inside? You can’t actually think of how it could go wrong, but if anything that just leads you to worrying more at the unknown. You reclined your seat back after he left, so you can kind of half lay down in order to not be seen as easily but also for comfort. You know this was your idea but something about being around where you know he is, technically alone seeing as how there are no other people around other than your ghost friend, is making you really uneasy and afraid. You decide to take your mind off of it by playing on your phone some, pulling up a little puzzle game and concentrating on that instead. It’s hard to keep focused because you keep looking up to check on the outside of the house. At some point a while later you look up and see that the house is completely dark, when you’re sure that there were lights on before. What is going on in there?

A moment later you see the lights come back on, and before you even have the chance to wonder what he is doing to William, he’s back. He pops into your car suddenly, startling you as he shows up without any warning.

“Jeez, I wish I knew when you were gonna pop up.” You say, fixing your seat and pulling out your keys as you’re eager to get out of here now that the job is done.

“But then I’d lose the element of surprise.” He says back with a grin.

You start your car after that and make a u-turn to go back the way you came so you don’t have to drive past his house, feeling better already now that you can leave, “So what’d you do in there? I saw the lights going off and on.”

“Oh it was great, I was just fucking with him a little to see if I could find out what he is afraid of.” He responds excitedly.

“Only a little?” You question, keeping your eyes on the road.

“Well.. I set his food on fire and I sent a knife flying at him, but it was no big deal.” He says easily.

“Beetlejuice!” You exclaim, seeing him jolt a bit out of the corner of your eye.

“I told you to be careful, that sounds pretty extreme!” You continue.

“Noo, it was completely fine. He had no idea it was foul play, I made it look like accidents.” He waves a hand at you dismissively.

You pause for a while, making a few turns, “So… what worked?” Your curiosity getting the better of you.

He snickers a bit from beside you, “See you’re fine with it, you want to know too! You won’t believe this, after I did all that.. It’s just spiders.”

You laugh a little, “Is that all? I guess that is a really common fear for people though, so I’m not surprised.”

“I thought the same thing, it’s not super exciting, but I can work with anything.” He says confidently.

“Do you already have a plan?” You ask, coming up to your town now as you drive.

“Just a bit, I’m gonna play most of it by ear but I was thinking that you could be a part of it too, which would make it more fun.” He answers, picking up the flash drive that he put in your cup holder earlier.

“Yeah I was wondering what I would be doing in all this. I know you’re gonna run the show, but I was hoping I could help somehow.” You say back, stopping at a red light.

“I got this drive of his, it’s got some personal things on it, I was thinking you could distract him with this to begin with while I get into place. Then I can use it to taunt and embarrass him as well, I didn’t need to do any tests to see that he’s the kind of guy to be afraid of his reputation being ruined, and this’ll do just that!” He explains, you watch him holding up the drive as he does since you’re not moving right now. 

“Sounds good, I’ll do my best! What’s on there anyway?” You question, starting back up and getting closer to your house.

“Uh.. Just some, sensitive material of his, you know..” He says hesitantly, seeming put off suddenly.

“What, does he have his nudes on there or something?” You say in a grossed out voice.

“Yeah you could say that.” He answers, not exactly saying yes or no.

_ She doesn’t need to know the exact nature of what he has in here, it’ll just give her another reason to hate his guts, which is fine by me, but she’ll probably also be more afraid of the guy. I don’t want her to be so worried...Yeah, better to just keep this a secret. _

Something’s up with him, but you’re not sure what for, “I’m not a baby Beej, if he’s got porn or whatever on there then you can just say so, I mean I hate the guy but that’s pretty normal you know?”

“Yeah.. it’s a lot of porn, like a shit load.” He says finally, sounding a bit hesitant still.

You just shrug in response, trying not to think about it being used by William because that’s just nasty, maybe that’s why Beetlejuice was trying to refrain from saying what was on there? Still seems odd though. You pull up to your house shortly after that, turning the car off and stepping out to lock it behind you. 

You look over at him from your side of the car, “Hey.. Sorry for kind of freaking out back there, I know it was my idea but I underestimated how I would take it.”

He cracks a smile, “Ah it’s no problem babe, I mean, it was your first time right? You’ll get used to it.”

You look at him weird, he didn’t pick the best way to phrase that, “Yeahh.. Sure.” You respond slowly, not entirely sure that you’ll be up for more crimes after this.

You step away from the side of your car then, looking up at your street as you do. You take a few steps towards your house and then stop a second to scan your eyes over everything.

“Look at that, the street lights are already coming on. I guess we were out for longer than I thought... Time really flies.” You say turning away from your house.

He comes up beside you then, “Yep it’ll do that. It doesn’t help that we slept through the whole morning though.”

You had kind of forgotten about that, but thinking back on it now still makes you feel embarrassed again just like before when you first woke up. You were thinking about it earlier and you would never say it, you barely have admitted it to yourself, but after this morning despite the position hurting your neck it was actually kind of nice waking up and having someone there for a change. Rather than always waking up alone like you did normally. 

“Not to mention his just-woke-up voice was kind of ho--” You stop your own train of thought right there, not letting yourself complete that sentence even internally.

What are you thinking? Those comments from yesterday when you were on the phone with Vic must just be getting the wrong ideas in your head, that’s all. It has been a while since you dated anyone, you were always too busy with work, that’s probably just weighing on you after having indulged in the dating scene during college. Yeah, completely normal stuff like that. You glance over at Beetlejuice for the first time in a bit to see that he’s already looking at you, leaned against your car next to where you’re standing on the sidewalk.

You feel your face heat up a bit, it’s not like he knows what you were thinking about, but somehow you still feel embarrassed to find him looking at you after getting lost in thought, “Hey.. what? Why are you staring at me?” You manage, trying to seem casual.

He smirks, “You just looked like you were thinking really hard. I was waiting to see if you had something to say is all.”

You laugh a bit nervously, “No no, just… Daydreaming.”

“Aw, about me? I’m flattered!” He shoots back playfully.

You feel like you’re blushing for sure, now was not the best time for him to get all flirty, “Shut up!” You manage, trying and you assume failing to seem normal.

_ Fuck, that’s cute. _

You turn then and go towards your house, hoping to leave that behind entirely before you get yourself into any more trouble. You glance back to see him following after you as you go. You’re going to solidly blame Victoria for this, you didn’t have any trouble combating his attempts to flirt or charm you before. And nothing has changed since then other than talking to her, so obviously, she did this. You get inside quickly, kicking off your shoes once you get in through the door. He appears through the wall right after you, never bothering to use your door.

“So what’s the plan for tonight, since tomorrow’s the big day!” He asks, coming into the house and going to settle on the couch like usual. 

You think for a bit, hanging up your jacket, “Well, I dunno, I’m kinda hungry so I can start on dinner. I should probably try to go to sleep early tonight since I have to actually wake up on time now…” You trail off, listing the different things you need to do.

“Sounds boring.” He says flatly, hanging over the back of the couch to look at you.

“Yeah, real life is like that, unfortunately.” You shrug, walking up to stand in front of him.

“It doesn’t have to be, unlimited fun and entertainment is just one demon away!” He grins.

You smile at him. “Yeah yeah, I already have you here, I don’t need the sales pitch. Regular life still has to happen in order for things to function you know... I gotta eat and sleep, and sadly I have to work so I can pay rent. My life was relatively normal before you walked into it, remember?”

“Well yeah, but now look at you! Seeing the dead, summoning demons, revenge plans, breaking the law and kind of stalking somebody. You’re like, a whole new person! You can’t tell me this isn’t way more fun than what you had going on before.” He rants excitedly, gesturing with his hands as he does.

You laugh as he lists all those things off. But it is true, you’re a very different person than who you were before he showed up, and it has been a lot more exciting than just working to live and living to work. You’re having a ton more fun now that he’s here, sure there have been a few issues but nothing that you guys couldn’t resolve. This situation was honestly working out way better than you could have hoped, especially given how strange it is in the first place. 

After thinking for a while you smile at him genuinely, “You’re right, it’s been way better, we make a great team.”

You see him look a little surprised but the normal smile he had on only turns into a bigger grin instead. With that you turn and head off to the kitchen to get some pasta ready, you figure something easy today would be best. You pull the things out from the pantry that you need, putting on a pot of water to boil as you do, setting everything up on your countertop. While the water is heating up you go into your fridge to find the small-ish piece of parmesan cheese you know you still have in order to grate it into a bowl for the food. Beetlejuice comes in a moment later using the actual doorway this time for a change, coming up next to you just as you’re bent down pulling out a metal cheese grater from a deep drawer below you.

“Do you.. need any help?” He asks hesitantly.

You turn around with the grater in hand, looking at him with a quirked brow, “Yeah, actually, do you want to grate a bunch of cheese?”

“Sure.. I can do that!” He says, turning away from you then to go to the sink.

You watch him go and see that he is starting to wash his hands of his own accord, without you even having to ask three times either. You flash a big smile at the back of his head despite him not being able to see you, then set the cheese down and grab the box of pasta you set out and walk over to the stove with it.

“Hey ya know, you’re changing too, you’re acting more like a regular human everyday!” You say cheerily from behind him at the stove. 

He goes over to where the cheese is but not before spinning around to stick his tongue out at you, “Blegh, don’t say that, gross!”

He starts to grate some cheese shreds into the bowl you set out for that purpose, holding the small triangle of parm carefully in his not very delicate hands. You snicker a little at that, it’s kind of funny to watch. You turn around and pour the dry pasta into the now boiling water, but then realize you left the stuff you need over near him.

“Oh Beetlejuice could you give me the salt and that big spoon over there?” You say looking over your shoulder from in front of the pot.

It already slipped out but much to your surprise his full name doesn’t actually make him jump or flinch this time like it has been for the last several days. Seeing as how he has usually been associating the name with being banished and he didn’t react this time, maybe that means he is actually starting to trust you back, instead of thinking you’re sending him away whenever you are just trying to get his attention. Instead of turning around he continues to grate cheese and just flicks his head to the side at the stuff you need and it begins to float over to you. You grab them out of the air easily, salting the pasta water and beginning to stir it with the spoon.

“My grandma always said to salt the water.. I know some people on the internet claim it doesn’t matter if you use box pasta, but I want to listen to her still.” You say, kind of to yourself, but still hoping to make conversation.

A couple minutes go by and he hasn’t said anything for a good bit, so maybe you should make sure he’s okay actually, “Hey um.. I’m sorry, if it makes you upset. It just feels nature to call people by their first name ya know? I can try harder to stop if--”

He cuts you off as you begin approaching him from the stove, “It’s… not my first name, actually.” He says quietly, sounding nervous. 

You bring your brows together in confusion, “But wasn’t that the whole point of his name summoning thing? Oh.. Wait that’s right.. Back when I was still trying to guess it he said it was his middle name didn’t he?” You think to yourself, that detail having slipped your mind until now since ghostly naming conventions was not something you were familiar with.

He was just kind of staring at you, probably waiting for you to say something back, “Right right, middle name you said, I remember now…” You trail off.

You feel like you want to press on because this silence is killing you, but then he starts back up, “My first name is actually uh.. Lawrence.” He says slowly, sounding nervous still.

You feel a smile creep onto your face, letting a tiny giggle escape by accident. He scowls and turns away, grumbling to himself.

“Knew you’d just make fun’a me..” He mutters to himself, facing away from you.

You step closer, “No no! It’s just.. Remember when I got your name using the hangman game and I was surprised! I was expecting a normal human name and you said that it was dumb cause you’re a demon of course you don’t have one.. But.. You do! You do, and it’s.. Lawrence!” You ramble quickly to try to reassure him, sounding excited.

He turns back with a frown, “Yeah but you don’t have to rub it in, I know it’s stupid.”

Now it’s your turn to frown, “It is not! It’s nice! ..I like it.” You say honestly.

He’s still looking at you intently and seeming to be searching your face for some reason, so you press on, “I mean it! I have no reason to lie, I think it suits you!”

He knits his eyebrows together but stops frowning, “And you  _ don’t _ mean that as an insult?”

“Not at all! ...I would say that it’s cute even.” You say honestly, smiling at him.

You knew you didn’t see it wrong this morning, he can blush and he’s doing it right now, it showing obviously against his pale skin. That just makes you laugh a bit again, you hope he doesn’t take it the wrong way, but it’s just a little absurd to you that you can make a big bad powerful demon blush that easily. You take a step away to return to the stove but decide to clarify before you keep cooking.

“So... would you prefer me to call you that from now on or..?” You say cautiously. 

He averts his eyes before answering, “I’m not sure babes… Um, maybe just stick with the nicknames for now I guess?”

You smile at him, “Sure thing Bug, whatever makes you comfortable.”

His eyes widen and a stripe of the front of his hair is shot pink in an instant, you hold your eye contact because you don’t even really need to look up at it directly since the color is bright and obvious. You figured you might get a reaction out of using a name like that, deciding that maybe the pet name street could go both ways for a change. And honestly it does feel kind of good to get such a strong reaction out of him, you could get used to making  _ him _ flustered for a change. You do still wonder what pink means exactly, he doesn’t seem like he disliked the name that’s for sure, maybe it’s surprised? He seemed pretty surprised just now. You flash him a quick grin but then turn back to the stove to stir the noodles again as they cook, not wanting to make him upset by asking about his hair again. You open two small cans of tomato sauce and get them into a little pot of their own so they can reduce down, then you go back to moving the softening noodles around in the pot so they don’t stick. It’s hard to keep focused on the food though because you’re distracted and you can’t take your mind off the hair thing. 

You make a decision right then and go to tell him straight away, “You don’t have to keep wearing hats by the way, I’ve decided I won’t bother you about the colors anymore. You can just let me know if and when you want to.” You say aloud to him without turning around, thinking maybe he’ll be more likely to talk about it if he doesn’t feel pressured.

He doesn’t say anything back right away so you continue, “But for the record.. Pink does look really good on you. Might be my new favorite.”

You hear a metal clatter behind you and you glance over your shoulder to see the cheese grater down on the counter and him leaning forward with both his hands braced on the countertop, just staring straight down at nothing. You snicker lightly to yourself, you’re definitely having some effect on him, you hope it’s not making him angry though, that’s not your intention at all.

_ I’m fuckin’... losin it. I still want her to let me live here but by god it is not going to be easy if this is how she acts when she’s warmed up to someone. How can she just say all those things! Out LOUD! Jesus fuck… I guess I should start talking again, she’s definitely gonna think something’s goin’ on if I just clam up over here. _

He laughs then, not sounding quite like he usually does, “You’re killin’ me over here woman.” He finally gets out.

“You’re not upset right?” You turn around and ask for clarification, just in case, even though it doesn’t really seem like he is.

He makes a sound like he’s gonna talk and then pauses, “Nope, uh.. Just. Just having a  _ time _ . Hahah..” He stutters out only making you more confused, then the small bowl you got out earlier appears floating in front of you.

“Here’s the cheese.” He says suddenly, quickly walking away.

_ Oh real smooth, asshole. _

You take the bowl out of the air, then turn to pour it out into the sauce so it can start to melt and mix in. Maybe it’s just from standing in front of the stove but that whole exchange did leave you feeling a little warm and happy, it was nice having him share more with you suddenly and you were trying to be honest about everything, not making fun of him like he assumed. You are doing your best, maybe in the hopes that he would feel more okay with opening up, because he seems to have a whole story to him and you wouldn’t mind listening. Hopefully you haven’t taken it too far, but making him flustered is quickly becoming something you want to do more and more, because it is very fun after all.

He has gone off somewhere into your house while you stand at the stove, the sauce fully melting the cheese right around when the pasta is good and ready as well. You stop stirring and pick up the heavy pot of water and noodles to go strain it in the sink, doing so carefully until all the excess water is out. Then you bring it back to the stovetop and combine the noodles with the cooked sauce, making a large pot of gooey pasta thanks to all the extra cheese. He really grated it a lot, more than you would usually have put in that is. After a good few more stirs you turn all the heat off and plate the pasta up, getting you both nice sized servings each.

You come back out of the kitchen with the two plates to see him on the couch with the tv on, but not really looking at it, instead he is looking down at the floor and combing his fingers through the front of his hair. You walk up and set the food down on the table, then take your seat on the couch beside him.

“What are we watchin’ tonight?” You ask with the remote in hand.

He looks up at you then, stops fidgeting, and blinks a few times, “...More game shows?”

You smile, “Sounds great.”

You turn the game show channel on to see that The Price is Right is on, a really old episode where the quality is noticeably bad compared to the more recent recordings. You pick up your food and start eating, noticing that he seems a little off when you walked in but choosing not to press him on it. He does the same after a second, taking a few big bites and then pausing.

“Hey um, Thanks for the dinner. But you don’t have to keep feeding me, you know I don’t need to eat right?” He says then, looking over to you.

You finish up your bite before responding, “Yeah I know, but I like cooking simple stuff. Plus eating makes you happy doesn’t it?”

The corner of his mouth lifts a little, “Yeah, it does. Just feels really…  _ normal _ .”

You smile, “That’s funny,  _ you _ , normal?” You pause for a bit then, “Actually I guess I should say  _ us  _ instead _. _ ”

“I like that a lot better.” He says simply, continuing to eat and looking much more at ease now.

The rest of dinner goes on without anything too eventful, the show plays and you both finish your food pretty fast. You let the episode come to an end and then stand up with a stretch, picking up the two plates after you’re done. You’re just about to walk off when he stops you.

“Here let me.” He says quickly, taking the plates from you.

But instead of going anywhere with them he just holds them with both hands and then makes them disappear. You look over at the kitchen from where you are and then back to him.

“The sink is right there, I could’ve done that without supernatural powers. Unless... are they gone completely? Or are they in the kitchen?” You ask, squinting at him.

He pauses then nods his head towards the kitchen a second later as you hear a clattering sound from afar, “They’re in there  _ now _ .”

You roll your eyes, “Don’t just remove my stuff from existence please. I kind of like the things I have.”

He grins, “I can always bring them back!”

“Yeah but I’ll lose track of what’s gone, and you’ll forget to bring the stuff back. I don’t want to have to buy replacements.”

You turn around and take a look at the clock after you finish speaking, realizing that you should turn in. You aren’t particularly tired yet, but you will probably be up way too late to wake up in the morning if you stay out here, watching TV or messing around. And you need to go there on time tomorrow for the big show, you wouldn’t want to be late again and have your boss intervene before Beetlejuice can do whatever he wants to do to William.

“Alright, I should probably go and lay down.” You let him know, grabbing your phone off the coffee table.

“It’s still so early though.” He says, frowning at you from the couch.

“Yeah, but I’ll hopefully get tired sooner if I am in bed with the lights off.” You point out, starting to walk around to go to your bedroom.

You hear him grumble behind you and you just laugh, “You should sleep too, morning will come faster, then we can finally get to the fun part!” You say with a grin.

He smiles but doesn’t look as excited as you expected he would, “Fiinnne, I’ll give that a try I guess.”

You see him appear the heating pad you gave him the other day, realizing he must have been storing that somewhere this whole time. You’re glad it can help him, you figure it probably makes sleeping a more enjoyable time since he doesn’t do it for energy. You get over to your door and exchange goodnights before stepping inside. You change quickly, just taking off your bra and getting a pair of pajama bottoms, not bothering to grab a new shirt. Your bed feels great after being on the couch the past while, you get all comfy in your blankets and turn the light off. But then after trying to sleep for a while you end up scrolling on your phone rather than closing your eyes, switching the blue light filter on so hopefully you can start getting tired instead of the screen keeping you awake. With the looming excitement of the next day it is hard to relax and get some rest, so it takes much too long, but eventually you doze off a lot later than you would have liked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry that it's a little shorter than usual, originally this was part of a whole other big section as one chapter but it was just getting way too long so I wanted to break them into two instead. So uh.. that scene towards the end in the kitchen huh, what you guys think? >w>


	11. Showtime

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Obligatory use of "It's Showtime" at least once is being cashed in on this chapter title. Enjoy everbodyy~
> 
> Trigger Warnings here:
> 
> (TW: Similar to last chapter, discussion of the pornographic photos, a threat with under-lying sexual assault tones, as well as discussion of assault in general. None of the actual actions are described in detail deliberately, it is kept rather light and doesn't take up a large portion of the chapter. Use caution if you need to! <3 )
> 
> (TW: Insects, spiders. They themselves are not described in extreme detail, but the places they crawl and their effect on people kind of are. Just in case that gets under anyone's skin!)

You start to wake up slowly after feeling like something was touching your arm, rolling over and groaning. You closed your black curtains the night before so you don’t have the sun to blame for being disturbed, but even then you still don’t open your eyes just yet, waiting a couple quick minutes instead as you lay there. They seem to pass faster than normal minutes because you’re still on the edge of sleep.

Wait a second, why is it so quiet in here? You shoot up then, eyes snapping wide open. You forgot to put your alarms back on after your break from work. You scramble around frantically in your covers looking for your phone, but not feeling it anywhere. Then you realize out of the corner of your eye that a certain somebody has been standing off to the side of your bed this whole time.

“Mornin’ beautiful, you lookin’ for this?” He says teasingly, a wide grin as he waggles your phone back and forth in his hand.

You huff, “What are you doing in here, and why do you have that? What time is it, I must’ve slept in again I--”

“Nope, you’re right on time, I just woke you up so we won’t be late.” He replies, coming over and handing the phone back before continuing, “This was on the floor next to your bed.”

You take it from him and look at the screen, sure enough it is still under 10 minutes from when your alarm would’ve normally gone off. You guess he remembered from when you slept in before, you’re glad he did because you would’ve never woken up on time on your own.

You click the screen off, “Oh… That’s why it felt like something touched me, it was you.” You say slowly, pulling the blankets off yourself so you can get up.

“Yep, I was waiting for you to get up and then when I didn’t hear the alarm, I knocked. That didn’t work at all so I came in and saw you still sleeping, so I figured I could just shake you awake, which did work.” He recounts easily.

“Thanks for the play-by-play, can you stop watching me sleep though?” You ask, standing after a moment, “It’s creepy.”

“But babe, you know that’s my brand.” He jokes.

“Your face is a  _ brand _ .” You mutter as you make your way over to your dresser to start getting clothes out.

“You think so? I would look great on t-shirts, they should make those.” He wonders aloud, walking around behind you.

You take a deep breath, getting a few things into your arms and putting them on top of your dresser to put on in a few minutes. He seems awfully giddy today, you figure it’s just because he’s gonna be scaring someone really soon. You opt for more comfortable clothes today out of everything you own that’s work appropriate, not really wanting a skirt or stockings to get in your way when everything goes down. You turn around then and see that he is sitting on the edge of your bed waiting.

You gesture to the door, “You gotta leave so I can get ready.”

He stands then, walks halfway to the door, then stops and looks to be thinking of something. He turns to you and snaps, appearing a pair of socks in his hands, “You should wear these, it’s a perfect occasion.”

You take them from him and see that it’s the black and white striped pair of fluffy socks you got in a pajama set a few years ago. You look over at your closed sock drawer where your underwear are also stored. That bastard, he really wasn’t kidding about snooping in your house while you were gone.

“You pervert! Get out, out.” You say loudly, shuffling him out your door quickly, and closing it behind him. 

You hear him laugh from the other side, “I change my mind, you’re the worst roommate actually!!” You yell loud enough to travel through the door, he doesn’t stop laughing.

You huff and walk over to the dresser, opening the drawer and stuffing the socks back in there where they belong. No respect for privacy at all, you should get him back somehow, but he doesn’t even have anything here so what could you do? You go into the bathroom then and get ready, calming down pretty quickly as you brush your teeth. After a bit you come back out and get dressed, giving your hair a quick brush as well before walking out to the living room. He’s standing nearby and you make a very obvious show of turning your head away from his direction on your way to the kitchen with a “Hmf” sound.

“Heyy, you’re not still mad right, come on it was a joke!” He says behind you, following after you through the archway.

You sigh as you get some eggs out of the fridge, “Well, how would you like it if I went through all your stuff?” You reason.

“I don’t care.” He says easily, “Do you want to?”

You hear a loud banging sound come from the living room and rush over there to check what just happened, you lean out of the archway from the kitchen and see a giant pile of stuff in the empty area between your bedroom door and the couch. It’s just a mess of things, random clothes, fully inflated pool floaties, various weapons, way too many hats, a laptop, and a worrying amount of sex toys. You blink a few times at all of that, then turn back around to face him again.

“How..? Jesus.. Would you  _ please _ get that out of our house.” You say in disbelief.

“So you don’t want to go through it?” He asks, grinning.

You just shake your head, “You have too much energy this early in the morning.” You say, passing by him to go make yourself some breakfast.

He laughs, you hear another loud crashing sound and you just assume that everything is gone like you asked. He’s gonna get it if you go back out there and it’s still a mess. You get a pan heating up so you can scramble some eggs for yourself, not bothering to make him some because you’re still a bit sour and he doesn’t need them for the day anyway. He’s floating nearby watching it happen, but you don’t pay him much mind as you cook.

“You’re not giving me the silent treatment are ya?” He asks after a bit, sounding a little less joking than he did before.

You mull it over for a second but decide against it, you’re not actually that upset and today wasn’t the best day to use that tactic anyway, “No, but I’ll keep that in mind in case you make me really mad at some point.”

“Aw come on sweetness, don’t do that, if you don’t talk to me then who will!” He replies, following after you as you go grab a plate for yourself.

You just smirk and turn to face him, “Well if you make me that upset then you’ll have to find someone else to talk to. That shouldn’t be too hard anyway, right? Since you’re a free ghost now!” You say playfully before getting back to the stove where your food is sizzling.

From behind you he goes, “...Yeah but I wanna talk to  _ you. _ ”

You smile at your eggs as you scoop them onto your plate, the sentiment is pretty sweet despite him being a troublemaker. But he does sound a bit more serious with that, which is a little worrying because you’re just joking around, not really trying to make it into a big deal. You get your plate of food ready and turn the stove off, going to grab the pepper and hot sauce from your spice cabinet.

Once you have everything you turn around and face him again and see that he doesn’t look as bright and giddy as he did before, “Hey I’m just messin’ around, you know that right Bug?”

A toothy smile comes back to him immediately, “Course’ Babes”

You smile at him too, walking out to your living room to see that you were right, he did get rid of everything. That’s a relief, you settle on the couch easily and flick on the news really quickly. You only half pay attention to it as you eat, just liking to have something on in the background as you have breakfast. He comes in right after you, but instead of coming to sit with you he goes over to the bathroom instead which is kind of weird. You eat quickly, seeing that there is some traffic on the highway to your job. After a little bit of enjoying your food you see the time and realize you have to go pretty soon to beat the traffic, but actually now that you think about it, why bother driving? You finish up the last couple bites and go to put your plate in the sink before returning to the main room. He’s still in the bathroom though.

“You good in there?” You call from the other side of the bathroom door.

He comes out a second later, phasing through the door instead of using it, he is straightening out the fabric at the front of his jacket as he does. You give him a once over, his hair looks maybe slightly less messy and his tie is straight instead of crooked like it usually is.

“What, are you gettin’ all pretty in there?” You ask with a laugh.

He stands up straighter, “Well I’m gonna be scarin’ at a real office job. Gotta look Professional!”

You pat him on the chest a few times, “You look super professional, he’ll be terrified.”

He beams, “Perfect!”

You turn around then to gather up the things you need and shut the TV off. After you get your bag and put your jacket on you look over to see him going towards the door.

You stop him right as he is about to go through it, “Hey, where are you going?”

He looks at you confused, “Your car, where else?”

“Why drive?” You say with a smirk, stepping forward and linking your arm with his.

He smiles brightly at you then, “Now we’re talkin’!”

A moment later you feel the familiar rush of wind around you as you both travel there, you’ve gotten a bit used to it now but definitely not enough to do it without closing your eyes. The pressure that comes at the end that means you’re around to land makes you recoil in a bit, using both arms to hold on then. A second later you feel yourself touch the ground, opening your eyes to see he has brought you both to the other side of the parking lot from your job. You’re a walk away and you’re behind a tall hedge so no one who is going to the building can spot you. You glance around in all directions to make sure no one is around before you start talking.

“Alright so how are we doing this?” You ask in a hushed tone, looking up at him.

He unlinks his arm from you and digs around in his jacket pocket, pulling out the flashdrive he swiped from William’s house yesterday. Then he hands it over to you.

“So you take this, distract him to begin with and then I will reveal myself and start doing what I do best.” He replies.

“Yeah actually, how is that going to work? Won’t everyone be able to see you?” You question, holding the drive in your hand.

“Well usually, but the living are very good at ignoring the strange and unusual, so it should be pretty easy to just make myself known to only him. That way you and him will be the only two that can see me, everyone else in the office will just think he’s going crazy and screaming for no reason. Which might fare better for both him getting hired and also for comedy.” He explains then, taking a step over and looking over at the building on the other side of the hedge.

You look the flashdrive over thoroughly, and get an idea on how you can make it a little more convincing that you just stumbled on it and didn’t steal it from him. You throw the drive down onto the ground where there is some pavement, then use your foot to grind it into the rough surface some. Beetlejuice just watches on as you do, then you bend down and pick it back up, holding it out to show the damage.

“It looks all scratched and messed up now, this should help me be more convincing.” You explain before putting it into your own pocket.

“Sure, whatever works for you.” He replies with a shrug.

You check your phone then and peek over the hedge to see that most people are inside by now, and it’s only a little bit from when you would probably be getting in on a normal day. You shake your hands out a bit and then look up at him with determination.

“You ready to go in?” You ask.

He grins mischievously, “You know it babe!”

You nod and he goes translucent in front of you, you know that no one else can see him now so you start to walk around to your building as if it were any other day. He follows behind you quickly, close enough that you can feel the chill of him being there. You make your way inside without anyone taking notice of you and have a slow ride up the elevator to your floor. You step over to the door to your department, hesitate a bit, then walk in. Once you’re inside you stand there for a second and look over the floor, not as full as it usually is. You figure a good amount of people took off today to get a super long weekend for themselves, you glance over to the left away from your side of the floor and spot William in his cubicle, he is connected to the main walkway so you can see in pretty easily. You turn back to your side and make a beeline for your desk, not even daring to look into your boss’s windowed office. Once you get there you take the flash drive out of your pocket and remove your jacket. This is it, it’s about to happen, you mentally start to prepare yourself for this as you take a couple of deep breaths. Once you feel ready you turn to Beetlejuice and give him a silent nod, he smiles in return and nods back. It’s now or never.

You grip the drive tightly in a closed fist at your side and try to walk confidently over to his part of the floor, not looking at anyone or anything except the path in front of you. You get there a moment later, steady yourself, and get this show started.

“Heyyy William.. Funny seeing you here.” You start, trying to seem friendlier than you ever actually were to him.

He spins around from his desk in the office chair he’s parked in and grins up at you, standing quickly and making his way over to you. You see Beetlejuice go past him then and he is waiting behind near William’s desk. You swallow some spit nervously before continuing.

You step forward, getting into his space like he has done so many times to you, “I was just coming in from the parking lot, and what a coincidence, I think you dropped something.”

He actually leans in more, getting up close to your face and you have to fight not to push him away and scowl at him. You hold the drive up then, making sure it’s in full view. You see Beetlejuice become tangible and move up to his desk, getting up onto the wall of William’s cubicle and using the edge of it as a seat. William’s eyes go wide when he sees what you’re holding, he steps back then and snatches it from you quickly.

“Oh! .. Thanks, good thing I didn’t lose this, it has.. all my work on it.” He tries, but you know he’s lying.

He looks scared, like he’s thinking of you having seen the contents of the drive, even though you actually haven’t. But you don’t need to, you smile then, trying your best to look normal rather than scheming.

“Yeah it is a good thing, but it looks really beat up, you might want to check if it still works!” You say back, cheerily.

He darts his eyes from you to the drive back to his desk, then he takes a step back and goes to sit in his seat, setting the drive down on his desk but not putting it into the USB slot of his computer. You glance over and make eye contact with Beetlejuice quickly before looking back.

William is looking up at you from his chair, “I’m sure it’s fine, I’ll just check it later, I’m pretty busy… you should--” But then he’s cut off as the flash drive is suddenly in the port of its own accord and some of the contents begin playing on the screen.

The screen lights up with some loud obnoxious porn on it, some girl getting fucked doggy style and William’s speakers are playing it at full volume. People’s heads pop up over the walls of the cubicles, looking towards him and making angry scowling faces. You can’t help but smile darkly watching him scramble to try to get it off his screen, his face lighting up with embarrassment. He eventually just starts pulling at the drive roughly, but it doesn’t come loose because Beetlejuice is holding it in place using his powers. Out of frustration he just punches the power button in until the whole computer shuts down. You’ve been standing nearby watching this happen but suddenly William springs up, stepping over to you and getting right up in your face again.

“You think this is funny bitch? You did that shit didn’t you? Hacked my computer, my drive, whatever. Just trying to get me fired or something huh, what, you didn’t like what you saw on there? Didn’t want to be one of them huh? Well you better watch your fucking step--” He rants angrily in your face in a hushed tone so no one else in the office takes notice, he looks like he is about to get violent and you take a shakey step back, but then he’s cut off as Beetlejuice quickly makes himself known behind him.

_ Oh HELL no. You will not talk to her like that you piece of shit, time to fucking suffer. _

You barely have any time to think about what he said to you before William is suddenly grabbed around the arms and pulled back by the cables from his computer. The mouse, the keyboard and all the various power cables all stretched out and curling around him like thin black snakes. He’s pulled back into his seat and spun around, the cables wrapping around and holding him there as he struggles and grunts. Beetlejuice is still atop William’s cubicle wall, his hair a dark red at this point which you guess by his face means that he is angry. 

He leans forward as William is held in place, “Hey fucker, you’re dealing with me now.” He spits.

William snaps his head up and looks at the demon, making it obvious that he can see him too. He is still struggling and you take a few steps away to watch from a bit down the hall, not wanting to be too close to whatever is about to happen.

“Who.. who are you??” He says shakily, pulling at the wires that are wrapping him up in his chair.

“Just your worst nightmare, asshole” Beetlejuice says darkly, snapping his fingers.

As he does, William’s computer monitor crunches in on itself some as if it was being crushed by something much larger than it, then his whole desk starts to ooze dark green slime, which quickly makes its way down off the top of the surface and across the floor to where he is tied up, going up his legs. It appears to be hurting him somehow as William starts to really scream at this point, but you aren’t sure how because it doesn’t look like it’s burning hot or anything. People are jumping up now and starting to come over, but from what you can tell no one can see anything other than William and his computer cables, so instead of doing anything they just stay away from him and all start whispering to each other, probably thinking he’s gone crazy.

Big arms come out from the cracked computer screen then, they look like some kind of creature’s arms but definitely not human, two of them reach forward with clawed hands and grab a hold of William’s head on either side and hold him in place forcing him to look directly forward. A third arm extends out of the screen to grab him by the top of the head, pulling his hair roughly upward. Then out from the computer screen, crawling along the arms on a path directly for his face, comes a bunch of large tarantulas and a swarm of spiders with long spindly legs. William’s panicked yells go even higher, and he’s shouting for them to get off of him, straining to move around from the grip of the monster arms and the wires. A few of the abnormally large bugs do fall off of him from the struggle, crawling around freely on the ground around his chair and in the hallway instead.

Some lady from a way down the hall that was watching as William freaked out screams then as well, pointing to the giant bugs around on the floor. It looks like they’re visible to everyone, and as more and more of the bugs keep coming out people start running for the door to get out into the main hallway or go to the elevator. You just take a couple more steps back, looking up to see Beetlejuice is staring down at him menacingly, a wide grin spread across his face.

William meanwhile is not screaming as much now, because some of the smaller spiders began making their way into his mouth. He was spitting them out and thrashing around in the chair so much that the chair actually just falls over under him. He goes down with it because he’s still tied up, but the arms retract and most of the bugs fall off of him onto the ground. His face goes straight into that mystery sludge though and he starts to kick his legs around on the ground. You’re thinking that he is going to suffocate in there or get poisoned or something but then Beetlejuice hops down from his place up on the cubicle wall, stepping forward to kick him out of the sludge roughly before picking him up by the front of his shirt. He holds him up easily, then snaps the chair away so that it’s just William on his own in the demon’s grip. He is struggling and trying to get away from him and you see the ghost lean in to say something that you can’t hear over the commotion from how far away you are. There are still people running and at some point even more insects started to turn up, from other places than just William’s computer. You watch as Beetlejuice throws him back down to the ground hard, you turn then and take the opportunity to sneak off to the break room where things are quieter. You don’t want anyone to see you sticking around for fear that they’ll connect you to what happened to him. Once you get inside you have a moment of relative quiet for the first time since it all started.

You just stare at the floor for a second, steadying your breath after being a part of that and then watching the worst of it happen in front of you. It was a lot to see, a lot more than you were expecting, and surprisingly violent. You weren’t expecting him to get so hurt, at least you think that it hurt based on the way it looked, which made you feel pretty afraid watching it. Not for him, because you don’t care about him, but just scared in general watching it all go down. But somehow now that it’s done, with the adrenaline going through you, right now you manage to feel more excited and thrilled having helped and watched rather than fearing for his safety or your own or anything. It was actually incredible to see! You had no idea that Beetlejuice could do something so crazy like that, he told you he could, but this was still surprising and there’s nothing like seeing it versus just imagining it. 

All you can think about is how everything is going to change now, after that, there is no way William is going to show his face in this office again. You’ll never have to deal with his pushy behavior, the inappropriate closeness, the unwanted touching, never have to deal with him at all ever again! The excitement of that rushes through you and you can’t help but squeal a little, jumping up and down in place a few times to get out all this energy.

Beetlejuice pops up suddenly in the break room with you, the noise from out there having died down quite a bit. He’s a few feet in front of you and appears to still be fuming a bit, his hair is still a deep red even along with his facial hair. You’re just assuming that red means mad, because he hasn’t told you for sure yet, but you don’t really understand why he would be mad instead of happy to have terrified someone just now. The excitement of being free of William is still all you can think about right now, so instead of stopping to think it over more or ask any questions, you just rush forward to where he is instead. You quickly bring him into a big hug, it must surprise him because he flinches slightly and just lifts his arms to let you hug him around the middle of his body for a few moments before he settles into it and moves to hug you back.

_ Oh shit, she’s probably pretty shaken up after that. I’m sure the shit he said really got to her.. I know she didn’t actually see what was on the drive so she doesn’t know what he meant, but the aggression there was probably enough.. Fuck I don’t know how to comfort people.. _

You feel him rub his hand in a small circle over the middle of your back slowly, “...Are you okay?” He asks hesitantly, sounding worried.

You just grin more, taking a step back out of the hug but grabbing a hold of both of his arms instead, “Are you kidding! I’m more than okay, I’m  _ amazing _ , that was amazing!!” You cheer, bouncing in place and making his arms move with you as you hold him.

You see confusion flash across his face, the red has faded nearly completely out of his hair by now but he doesn’t say anything just yet, you decide to keep going because honestly you are on cloud nine right now.

“He was _so_ afraid! It was great! I can’t believe you did all that! I came in here before you were done, what did he do? Did you let him go, did he run off, did he _cry_? God, that was  _ fantastic _ , you’re so incredible!” You rant on excitedly, asking a lot of questions in between as well.

You see a smile start to form on his face as you go, the red completely melting away now and his angry and worried expression leaving along with it. He laughs then too, as you get to the end of your little rant. He separates his arms from you then so you can’t keep bouncing them excitedly.

“Well, I’m glad you liked it then!” He finally says, his laugh dying down.

You just grin at him extra big, “So this is what it feels like huh? To make sure someone gets what they deserve, to get revenge. This is exhilarating!”

He nods, grinning at you, “Yep, pretty good right? Getting back at people is one of life’s.. or death’s, simplest pleasures. You really can’t beat it!”

You laugh, then step forward again and place a hand on his shoulder, “I can’t thank you enough! I would never have been able to fix this without you!” You say honestly.

He averts his eyes nervously for a second, “Heh.. Yeah sure babe, it’s no big deal.”

“No big deal! This is huge! You are like.. literally a life saver!” You explain.

He laughs loudly then, squeezing his eyes shut. You laugh too at the irony of that statement, it’s a funny thing to say about him but in your case it really is true. You come down from laughing after a bit and hear more noise from outside the break room, you stop to pay attention to it and realize that it’s your boss shouting at some people that must still be left in the office after all that.

“Beetlejuice.” You say suddenly in a serious tone, looking up at him.

He makes eye contact with you, looking panicked all of a sudden.

_ Oh fuck, this is it, she’s gonna send me back, she’s gonna get rid me now that she’s gone with me, I knew it, shit fuck-- _

“Let’s.. Let’s keep going.” You say hesitantly, fidgeting with the fabric at the bottom of your shirt as you do.

He takes a second to process, but doesn’t break eye contact, “... _ What _ ?” 

You step forward, getting bold, “Why should we have to stop! My boss is out there right now... I also hate him, so let’s keep going, I want you to scare him too!”

He still looks confused for a second, then relieved, then very happy, “ _ God _ you’re perfect. Let’s go.” he says quickly, grabbing a hold of your hand and leading you both towards the door.

Right before he can take you back out there though you stop short and pull him back without letting go of his hand, “I have a plan, turn invisible all the way before we get out there.”

He nods quickly, grinning at you, and you feel his hand leave yours because it’s gone intangible all of sudden. You step in front of where he is and go out first, leading the way. You make your way down the hall to where your boss is standing, he’s looking at the mess in front of William’s desk and yelling at his poor secretary as if any of this was her fault. You get up to him and put on your best acting skills.

“Mr. Johnson! Sir! It’s terrible, I think I found the nest! You have to follow me!” You panic fakely, grabbing his arm and trying to lead the way to the other side of the office floor.

“What are you talking about?! A nest! Our office is clean, it’s organized, what happened out here!” He rants on, tearing his arm away from you but still following suit as you walk quickly.

You don’t answer, instead you just go quicker, getting to the far wall on the other side of the large office, you take him over to a small vent on the floor that connects this level of the building to the central air conditioning. Beetlejuice follows along as well right next to you, coming up to stand next to the vent as your boss walks up.

“There’s nothing here, don’t waste my time!” He spits, going to turn away.

You grab him again and pull roughly, “No, I saw them all coming out from here, you have to check, I know they’re in there!”

Beetlejuice helps you along as you pull him by making your pull a lot stronger than it would’ve been by itself, causing your boss to trip and fall over onto the ground next to you. Once he’s on the floor he fiddles with the vent, pulling at the metal to attempt to remove it. It isn’t working, so Beetlejuice helps it along again by detaching the vent himself so your boss can pull it away easily. He tosses the vent covering to the side, and leans forward in front of the opening to look inside. You make eye contact with your demon and give the go-ahead.

Suddenly, out from the vent explodes a giant swarm of all different kinds of bugs, all flying around him despite some of those bugs definitely not having wings. You jump back, watching the cloud of insects engulf him. He is yelling and thrashing his arms all around on the floor, trying to get them off of him. Moths begin biting through his suit, making holes and tears in everything, and mosquitoes and ticks start biting him on any exposed skin he has. There are some of the previously seen spiders that are making their way into his hair and all over his face, making him scream and spit as they go around his eyes and his mouth. He’s completely helpless on the floor as this all happens, but soon he struggles to his knees and gets himself up off the ground. Once he manages to make it onto his feet the cloud of insects only surrounds him further as he tries to run clumsily down the hallway, crashing into a printer on the way to his office and knocking it down. You run after him to watch as Beetlejuice just appears in front of Mr. Johnson to hold the door to his office closed so he can’t get in. He heaves at the handle multiple times as the bugs continue to attack him before going for the exit instead, trying to make his way to the stairs out of the building. He slams the door open to the stairs and stumbles forward, nearly falling down them before the demon stops him from going down the stairs by pushing him backwards instead so he doesn’t break his neck. You’re happy he is a least listening to you when it comes to this stuff not seriously injuring anyone.

You stand off in the distance watching all this unfold, and Beetlejuice calls the bugs off suddenly, letting the man lay on the ground defeated. He just lays back on the concrete floor, huffing loudly and trying to collect himself. After a good while of that, he sits up and whips his head around to see you standing there. He gets up as fast as he can manage and stomps over to you as you back up slowly, he starts to get up close to you and Beetlejuice grabs him by the back of his suit jacket so he can’t get any closer.

“YOU! This is  _ your  _ fault! You brought these creatures in here, you--” He stutters angrily, pointing a finger at you.

“No, Mr. Johnson I didn’t, I was attacked by them too, while you sat in your office doing nothing! You only bothered coming out when you saw a computer was damaged!” You pause, glancing past him to make eye contact with Beetlejuice quickly, “There were bugs everywhere out here, attacking everyone, didn’t you hear us all screaming?” You say. back to him, not faltering as he yells at you.

You force some tears to your eyes to convince him, rolling up your sleeve to show a bunch of fake marks from the bugs that Beetlejuice made appear there moments before when you flashed him that quick look while explaining yourself. Your boss’s face falls, but he still looks very angry.

“You... Grrr.. get out of here! All of you!” He shouts, at you and then past you back into the office where a few people were still left.

He storms off behind you, grabbing things from the office, yelling at more people, clearly just trying to take his frustrations out. People scurry off, not wanting to be in his path, you rush back in and go towards your desk. He catches you as you do and shoots you a glare.

“Y/N close everything down, lock up everything, the day’s over, the.. The week’s over, and I’m closing the office until we get this fixed. I am going to get the best exterminators money can buy in here and they are going to blast this place to high hell with the strongest chemicals they are legally allowed to use.” He explains angrily, storming off out of the office completely after that.

As he goes you see everyone else that was left follow suit, and soon after you hear the familiar ding of the elevator as it takes the last remaining people down to the lobby. The whole place is deserted now, a bunch of the office furniture is knocked over completely and there are still some bugs left crawling around everywhere, it’s a real mess. You spin around slowly, taking it all in, and then start cackling hysterically. Beetlejuice has become fully tangible again at this point and he’s standing next to you laughing as well. You guys relish in the feeling of your successful mission for a bit, letting it all out before you need to stop and try to catch your breath. He doesn’t though, he could probably keep going forever since he doesn’t need to breathe.

You wipe a few actual tears from your eyes then, coming down finally. You push your sleeve up again and check your arm, it looks clean now after what happened.

“Hey, thanks for that back there, I’m glad you knew what I needed!” You say, holding up your bare arm.

“Oh of course babe, I could see where you were going with that, that was some Class-A manipulation by the way, you’re a natural!” He cheers, clapping a hand onto your shoulder.

You scratch the back of your head lightly, “You think so? I don’t do it much.. I always thought I was pretty bad at lying or acting.”

“Well I can’t speak for everytime, like for example when you first saw me and tried to play it off. Didn’t work at all, I saw right through you.. But this time was great!” He explains.

You snicker, “No, I saw right through _ you _ .”

He pauses and looks at you flatly, “I can’t believe I didn’t think of that first.”

You give a short laugh, walking down the hall a little bit to look at all the disheveled cubicles, just admiring Beetlejuice’s handiwork. You get over to the front door and pull out your keys, locking the door with you still on the inside like your boss wanted you to do before. He follows alongside you as you also look over all the computers slowly to make sure each one is off, most were, only a few were still on and those were probably from the first couple people to run off. You shut off all the lights too and now that you’re in the empty, dimly lit office, you turn back around and look at him. He looks a bit nervous and deflated rather than happy for some reason.

“What, not afraid of the dark are you?” You tease.

He snickers, “Oh totally, not being able to see well just really gets to me.” He jokes back.

You walk back over to your desk, grabbing the stuff you left there before and turn back to him now, seeing that he still looks unsettled despite the banter between you two.

“Hey, seriously, thank you so much! It was really cool to see you work some of that magic of yours, I would’ve definitely lost my job without you.” You say then, genuinely thankful for his help.

He looks a bit bashful, averting his eyes, “Aw, it’s really no big deal doll, I’m just doing what I do best.. Ya know, ruining people’s lives.”

You grin up at him, “Well you haven’t ruined mine, that’s for sure!” 

He makes eye contact with you again, smiling back at you but still not quite looking like his normal self. You can’t put your finger on it, but he seems tense, like he wants to say something but isn’t. You wait a bit, just in case he’s going to say anything, but when he doesn’t you continue instead. 

“Well, now that that’s done…” You say, gesturing to the general state of the office as you pause.

_ This is it. This is definitely it. She’s gonna send me back for sure. The moment of truth… Should I beg? That would be very unclassy of me, but it’s not like she hasn’t seen me do it before. Shit, what can I do here, maybe I can offer her something? A deal.. I should have thought of this sooner fuck-- _

You look at him confused as you watch his expression shifting, he honestly looks kind of scared, which was pretty crazy given who he is. You tilt your head to the side and continue with your question, “...You wanna go home?”

He takes a second to process, but then his eyes light up and his face shifts quickly, a big smile creeping onto his face, “Yes, more than anything!”

_ Crisis averted! I’m... in the clear! _

You smile at him, gathering your stuff onto one arm so you have a free one to use for holding on, then you open your arm wide and gesture for him to take hold so you both can go. He practically jumps forward at you, and instead of linking arms with you like you both did before he slides his arm around your side and holds you at the waist, leaving your free arm to wrap around him as you both suddenly start to go without much warning. You squeak at being grabbed, not expecting him to hold onto you this way, but once the rush of wind starts you don’t mind the closeness. You decide to be a little more fearless and keep your eyes open this time, just promising yourself not to look down. You keep your eyes fairly level, only looking up slightly to watch him as you both move, his eyebrows coming together in concentration. You notice the side of his head has some pink on it again, just a little bit that is resting right around his ears, you didn’t notice it appear but it’s bright now that it’s there.

The pressure builds up and then suddenly releases, you both plop down onto your couch in one smooth motion. You jostle around a bit as you land, used to landing on your feet not into a sitting position. You’re sitting right up next to him, his arm still lingering around you, as you hold your jacket and bag in one arm and bring your other arm around to rest on your lap now that you don’t need to hold on anymore. You’re still staring up at his head, looking at the bit of pink that’s there, and before you really realize that you’re doing it you reach up and go to touch the patch of hair that’s a different color. He jumps just a bit as you touch his head, but he doesn’t stop you, you run your fingers over it slowly and as you do you see the color spread out more over the rest of the green he usually has. That’s curious, it’s like a reaction to you, which you weren’t expecting. You keep touching his hair lightly, then you move your fingers to scratch a little at the places where the hair gets longer towards the top, surprisingly nothing unusual falls out like you’ve seen happen before. He starts to hum contently with closed eyes as you comb your fingers through the small tangles that crop up around the top of his hair, watching as pink begins to overtake his whole head. Maybe it doesn’t mean surprise after all, maybe it means he is comfortable? That could explain why he shooed you off when you touched his beard that one time, because he wasn’t pink so he wasn’t comfortable with it. That’s got to be it!

You do this for a bit longer, not really taking notice of how close you’re still sitting or the fact that he’s still holding onto you from before. You had let go of your things at some point to reach up higher, your jacket and bag falling away from you into his side instead. You retract your hand slowly after a few more moments, coming back down and leaving his hair be as he stops humming. It settles on you then the position you’re in and you feel like you should probably move, you reach around and place your hand on top of his where he is resting it at your side.

“Hey um.. Could I get up?” You say softly.

He perks up slightly, looking to you with half-lidded eyes and a lazy smile as he pulls his hand away from your waist after a moment.

“Oh.. gosh, he sure does look…  _ Happy _ ” You think, gulping down the nervousness you feel in your stomach from that look, then moving to get up once his hand is gone.

You feel a bit warm despite just sitting so close to him, maybe that wasn’t the best idea that you did that, but you weren’t thinking about it before you started to do it. That may have crossed a boundary you wouldn’t normally with a friend. If you’re right about pink meaning comfortable then you must have just made him very comfortable, because you’ve never seen him look like that before. You stand up then, grabbing your things from near him and going to hang them up where they belong. After you turn around to look at him from where you are near the door and see him just sitting there happily with his legs swaying back and forth from where they are hanging off the edge of the couch. You should make conversation or something, try to talk about something else that isn’t the exchange you just had.

You walk back over to the couch and sit down next to him again, just a little farther away. Now that you think of it, there is something weighing on your mind that you didn’t address before, how come he seemed angry and upset at the office rather than happy. You figured he would be excited to scare people, since he was looking forward to it before.

After a long bit of silence you decide to break it in order to find out, “Hey, I was just thinkin’, were you mad at the office before? You seemed really mad.”

He turns to you with a frown, “No I wasn’t mad at you, why would I be?”

“No, well not at me, just, you turned red all over? And I thought..” You try to explain, not quite knowing how to broach this without bringing up his hair colors again.

“Oh. Yeah, right..” He says quietly, glancing away and scowling slightly at the air. 

“I just figured you’d be happy to scare people, that’s why I was confused when you looked so upset instead.” You say hesitantly, seeing that he looks upset again now, but you’re not sure why. 

He sighs, “Well scaring does make me happy yeah, it’s just that he..” he pauses for a while and you wait patiently, “He’s just _complete_ scum, that’s why I was angry.”

You nod, “That’s fair, I hate him too. And he even threatened me on top of that! But I’m not sure what he was talking about..”

He looks guilty all of a sudden, “I...know what he meant, and he’s a bastard, that’s all you gotta know.” he grunts.

You frown at him, “Wait, it’s cause of whatever is on that drive right? He said something about me ‘being one of them’, if you know then you gotta tell me, what was he talking about?”

He deflates but doesn’t look at you, “Listen, babe... it’s _bad_ , I didn’t want to tell you because I’m sure it’s just going to make you… really upset.” He says hesitantly.

You look down and try to think through what he could mean, what could make you more upset than you already are at William? What would be that bad? Maybe a serious crime or some morally wrong thing, but Beetlejuice doesn’t seem to care about breaking those too much. Unless... It couldn’t be, could it?

“Beetlejuice did he… did he sexually assault people? Was there evidence in there?” You say slowly.

He looks back at you again, looking sad, “I… honestly don’t know, I don’t know if it’s enough evidence to say he did. But he might have. What I can tell for sure is that he was taking pictures of people while fuckin’ them, the photos were probably without consent, that much was obvious. There weren't enough photos there to know how much more there was to it.. but.. Yeah.” he explains, sounding uncomfortable.

You stare off at nothing for a long time. He really is the scum of the earth, that bastard. Even if he didn’t actually do it, what he was doing is still enough to make your blood boil. You could just tell, based on how he acted and how pushy he was, that he was bad news. But you had no idea it was that bad, that he could actually be dangerous.

“I should have just let you kill him.” You mumble, not looking at him.

There’s a long pause, “It’s.. not too late to do that, you know.” He points out cautiously.

You think it over. Really actually consider it this time, because if there is one variety of person on this earth that you think deserves to die, it’s people that violate others in that way. Some crimes just can’t be forgiven. But you can’t bring yourself to make that happen, even if you wouldn’t be doing it directly. Because maybe he didn’t go that far, how could you know? You still think he deserves to be in jail, at least, but you don’t think you could literally send a demon to kill someone in good conscience, you can’t bring yourself to make that choice.

You sigh, “No I.. I can’t. I can’t tell you to do that.” You say finally, looking back up to him.

He looks real upset, some purple in his hair now as he frowns at you, “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before, I just thought it would be better if you didn’t know cause.. Then you’d be afraid of him, and I didn’t want to make it harder for you.”

You listen to him explain, you aren’t upset that he didn’t tell you, if anything you think he was right. You probably would have preferred not to know. But it’s too late now, because you do know and that just changes everything about all the interactions you had with him.

“God… all those times he was trying to get me _alone_ with him, I.. I..” You mutter, holding your own arms and feeling really grossed out and afraid thinking back to those times he was so insistent with you.

“Hey, listen to me. I won’t let him lay a single finger on you, I swear. If he so much as comes within 10 feet of you I’ll destroy that man, you got that?” He says quickly, scooting closer to you and putting both hands on your shoulders, sounding earnest.

You nod, trying to shake the bad thoughts from you, not wanting to even think about what could have happened if you gave in and went on a date with him or something. In fact you think you’d feel better if you just tried to forget about him entirely and not dwell on what could have happened or his personal life at all, that way it can start to leave your mind and hopefully won’t bother you anymore.

“You’d really do that?” You ask after a bit, realizing how serious he sounds.

“Absolutely. I’m not gonna let you get hurt.” He says easily.

You offer a small smile in return at the gesture, it’s nice that he’s saying he’ll protect you. Though you hope that you won’t ever need it, not for that reason. He’s looking at you intently and you see his face shift slightly, away from serious to looking a little nervous instead.

“But don’t go tellin’ all your friends or nothing, I won’t do that for just _anybody_. Cause’ I’m evil, and stuff.” He tries to say, not sounding very convincing at all.

You snicker quietly, brightening up a little after that tough exchange, “Uh huh,  _ sure _ you are.”

He puts his hands on his hips, “Hey, you saw me before with all those bugs, good people don’t do that!”

“Yeah, but you’re not like that all the time, I wouldn’t really call you evil. You’re too soft for that.” You say easily, poking a finger at his belly to punctuate your sentence.

He crosses his arms and frowns, “I can’t believe this. My own friend, ruining my good name and saying I’m not evil. I’m hurt.” He closes his eyes and looks away dramatically to prove his point.

You take a look up at his hair and see that it’s just his normal green, so you doubt he’s actually hurt, it’s just more of his jokes like usual. You smile and reach up to touch his hair again for a second, running your fingers through the strands and combing it lightly.

“Well Bug I have a hard time believing you, no idea why that is.” You say in a sly voice.

He doesn’t uncross his arms but does open his eyes to look at you, “That’s cheating you know.” He says in a voice that easily betrays that he isn’t actually upset.

You smirk, “Well only  _ good _ people play fair.”

His smile comes back, the facade of being upset completely falling, “It’s your fault anyway, I wouldn’t be this soft if you weren’t so nice all the time. Always like ‘no murder’ this, ‘be considerate to the delivery guy’ that.” He says in a playful voice.

“Yeah yeah, but you wouldn’t even have your powers if it weren’t for me, so while you live here you can deal with it.” You say confidently with your hands on your hips.

“But you like my powers too! You can’t pretend you aren’t impressed.” He waggles his eyebrows at you.

“I called you incredible  _ one _ time, don’t push your luck.” You narrow your eyes at him, he’s right but you see no need to give him the satisfaction of knowing that.

He laughs, “A man can dream can’t he?”

You just shake your head with a laugh, getting up off the couch. You pace around in the living room for a second thinking. Today was really successful despite the terrible shit you just learned, you want to keep your mind off of it and think about the good part instead. You guys should really celebrate somehow, but what could you do? Food is the first thing that comes to mind so you walk off to the kitchen and return a moment later with several takeout menus in hand. You lay them down onto the coffee table, taking a seat next to him again after you do.

“So I was thinking, since the mission was so successful today at the office, we should celebrate! Pick whatever you want, my treat like usual.” You explain cheerfully, spreading out each different menu so they’re all visible. 

You turn to him and watch as he looks over each one, picking a couple up and leaning back with them to squint at all the small text. Eventually he settles on one and holds it up.

“Why not pizza! We haven’t done that yet.” He says excitedly.

“Yeah! It’ll be just like in elementary school, where you celebrate everything with pizza.” You say happily, taking the menu from him.

“The only good thing about school is getting pizza sometimes, that’s what I heard.” He says with a shrug.

You laugh at that, it’s kind of true, “Okay I’ll order it a little later, it’s kinda early for dinner. What else, is there anything you’d usually want for celebrating?” You ask.

He looks up in thought for a second, “Hmm.. how about sex, drugs, and rock & roll?” He lists on his fingers. 

You laugh before responding, “I can only provide like one and a half of those things.”

He grins, “Okay great, you bring the sex and the roll, I’ll get the drugs and the rock!”

You slap him on the head with the menu in your hand, “No!! That is not what I meant!”

He laughs loudly, you just continue on, “I don’t have drugs but I guess I could buy some alcohol or something, and I have Rock Band 2 for the xbox that we could play.”

He settles down after a few moments, “What’s that, is it like Guitar Hero?”

You get up and walk over to your TV, crouching down and opening up the cabinet the TV is on to reveal an Xbox 360 and a small stack of games, “Yeah it’s basically exactly that, except they have some different songs and a different name.”

He suddenly appears a guitar controller meant for music games in his hands and stands up, “Awesome, I’m in!”

“Did you just.. Have that the entire time? Why do you own that?” You question, getting the console plugged in and ready.

“I stole it.” He says easily, waving his hand to make the coffee table move around to be behind the couch so it won’t get in the way.

You step back into the newly opened space and use a wireless controller to turn the system on, “That makes sense. Hey thanks, this’ll make it much easier to play.”

You set the controller down on the couch and go over to the closet to pull out the other plastic guitars you have as well, so you can have one to use too.

“Do you want one of mine or will you use that one?” You ask him without turning around, stretching up on your toes trying to reach far enough to get them down off the highest shelf in your closet.

You try a small jump to reach them up there and then suddenly you start floating up to the shelf instead, raising off of the ground slowly.

You look over your shoulder and see him doing it with his hand, “Yeah grab me one of yours, I don’t even know if this one works.” He admits, tossing it behind him and making it disappear in mid-air before it can crash land on the floor.

You reach back and grab two guitars, then turn around and give the okay so he’ll take you back down to the floor. You come down slowly and then you feel yourself standing on your own again once your feet touch the ground. You cross the floor easily after that and hand him one, keeping the other for yourself. You set the game up using the regular game controller and then open the song menu to choose one to play, scrolling through the long list until you find out you like.

“We used to play this one all the time in my dorm, how about it?” You ask him, highlighting  _ My Own Worst Enemy _ by Lit.

“Sure, I’m up for whatever!” He says, setting his own difficulty to hard.

You keep yours on medium and start the song up, choosing to play the bass instead because it’s usually a good bit slower than the guitar tracks in the game, and you just like the game for fun not because you’re especially good at it. Beetlejuice goes full on guitar with hard mode so you expect him to either be really good at this or really bad, you can’t say for sure just yet. The song gets going and you concentrate on the colored nodes coming down your side of the track, trying to keep a streak going, but then the chorus of the songs starts up and you get distracted with singing the lyrics to yourself. You glance over at his track and it looks much more complicated, he doesn’t have a streak right now so you know he must have messed up at some point but he is also doing much better than you. So it looks like ‘really good at it’ is the answer, which is weird, why would he be good at rhythm video games of all things?

You kind of give up on doing well and instead just opt for keeping yourself in the round by not fucking it up too bad and singing along instead, “Please tell me why, the car is in the front yard and I'm--  Sleeping with my clothes on!!” 

He laughs a bit next you, probably noticing that you’re not good at it. You just keep going however, not really caring about it or being embarrassed, it’s all about having a good time either way. The song winds to a close shortly after and you back out to the main menu again, getting the list up to pick a new song.

“You’re not good at this” He points out with a laugh.

You stick your tongue out at him, “Whatever, let’s just pick another song!”

“How about one we both know this time babes, then I can sing with you” He smiles.

You scroll through a bit more, “You like Journey?” You ask, figuring since he knew all those other classic rock songs that he’ll know this one too.

“Yeah, let’s go!” He cheers.

You click on  _ Any Way You Want It _ and start it up, keeping all your settings the same. This song is easier on both tracks it looks like, probably because it’s kind of repetitive so the lack of variation makes it easier to memorize. Better for you because doing the same couple notes over and over made it easier to do better and also to sing along without messing up. You both sing along in unison, he messes up even less on this song despite also singing it. He sounds really good actually, you’ve realized over the course of being around him that you like his voice a lot, it’s very  _ him _ . The song keeps going and he’s doing nearly perfect at this one, he must just be good at music games for some reason, maybe he used the last one as a warm up or something. Seeing him doing so well makes you try a little harder too, just so it doesn’t look as bad when you guys get the final scores at the end. The numbers count up at the end of the song and it’s obvious that you weren’t that good, but at least you did a lot better than last time. You’re about to ask what he wants to play next when you hear a ringing sound behind you.

“What’s that?” He asks, setting the guitar down next to the TV.

You look around and then see your phone lighting up on the couch, “Oh shit, I’m getting a call.”

You walk over quickly and look at the screen, “It’s.. my boss?”

He frowns at you but you wave your hand for him to be quiet while you answer. You pick up the phone quickly, greeting him rather nervously. You guys have a short back and forth conversation as you walk around the living room, having a hard time sitting still while you’re on the phone. Eventually you hang up the phone and look back up at him to see that he’s in the character creator area making some lady with purple hair sitting at a drum kit.

“Beej it’s great news!!” You call, tossing the phone back to the couch and stepping back over to him.

He puts the controller down and looks up happily, “He was severely allergic to the fleas I sent after him and he’s bedridden permanently?”

You laugh, “Well.. actually that’s not too far off. He is having a reaction to the bugs, dunno which ones, and he said he’s going to work from home indefinitely for now. He’s even making his secretary take his place in his office, so she’s going to be the main communication between our company and all the other branches, while he’s at home!”

He beams, “Hell yes! That’s not as good as what I said but still really great!”

“Yeah it is, I can do my work without him breathing down my neck for once.” You say, feeling relieved that your work experience is only getting better because of today.

You look down at the clock and realize it has gotten pretty late after everything that happened today, you should probably order the food now before it gets too close to closing time. You turn back and grab your phone, bringing up the number to order.

“I’m gonna get the food, what toppings do you want?” You ask him without turning around.

“All of them. Put everything on there.” He says seriously.

You turn around and frown at him, “That’ll be gross.”

“You said it’s my choice right?” He asks, crossing his arms.

“But I hate anchovies.” You plead, giving him the patented puppy eyes.

He smiles, “Okay okay fine, just do pepperoni then.” He gives in.

You grin, calling the place up immediately and ordering the dinner special they have that comes with garlic bread and soda. After giving your address and everything you hang up, leaving the phone on the couch once more.

“Alright that’s done, it should be like 30 minutes or so. How are we gonna scare the guy?” You walk up to him and ask.

He grins, “Ya know, you just keep gettin’ better.”

You smirk, “Yeah, it’s your influence on me.”

You guys go over a plan to scare the pizza delivery guy for a while, Beetlejuice bouncing ideas off of you and transforming into various creatures and objects to see what would work best. He suggests bringing the clones in on this but you turn it down because then they’ll probably want a share of the food for helping. He admits you’re right, claiming they’re ‘greedy bastards’ just like he is. You’re in the middle of laughing at him when the doorbell rings and you both scramble to get things set up.

“Hello~!” You call cheerily as you open the door to see an unassuming teenager carrying a big insulated bag holding your pizza and other food.

He goes to hand over the stuff after you exchange a few words back and forth, but you don’t reach out to grab them, instead taking a step back, “Oh I’m so sorry, I forgot your tip in my purse. Would you give me one moment? You can just put the food down right here on the table.” You gesture to the table that was moved around to be behind the couch as you pass by it on your way to the kitchen.

You take much too long getting your purse that doesn’t exist and while you are waiting in the kitchen from a spot you can watch, Beetlejuice comes bounding out of the bathroom transformed into a medium sized dog-like creature that has pointed teeth much too large for his mouth and a snake for a tongue. He’s making horrible gurgling and barking sounds as the dog and starts chasing the boy around your living room as you emerge with ten dollars in your hand.

“Miss get your dog!! Get him!! Oh my god” He yells, running past you.

You smile, “Oh don’t worry, he doesn’t bite. Much.”

During the commonotion you manage to stuff the money into the now empty insulated bag, which the boy snatches out of your hands on the way past you for the second time, then runs straight out of your house and to his car. Beetlejuice follows him all the way there, growling and drooling the whole way as the boy yells to ‘get that piece of shit away from me’ loudly down the sidewalk. He eventually makes it into his car and peels away probably without even putting the seat belt on or anything because he was in too much of a rush. You hope he’ll be okay getting back and won’t get into any trouble because of you, but you also can’t stop laughing. Beetlejuice pops back up in your home a second later as himself, also cackling, leaned back and holding his stomach while floating in the air. You go past him to close your front door before turning back around and offering a high five which he floats over and takes, slapping your hand as he lands back onto the ground.

“That was so great, why’d you pay him? I’m sure he would’ve left it for free with me after him.” He says, finally coming down from laughing.

“I already paid over the phone, that was just his tip. I think he deserves a tip after that.” You explain, walking up and unpacking the food onto the table.

“Ah there you go being all nice again, I say screw’em. Making it away unscathed should be his tip.” He says, not sounding like he’s joking at all.

“Yeah yeah, I like to make sure they’re paid, they’re doing me a service by bringing food after all. Especially since that place probably isn’t gonna let me order ever again.” You say with a snicker, grabbing a slice of pizza and taking a bite.

He just shrugs, coming over to get food too, grabbing the biggest slice in the box first. You both stand there eating, then he walks over to the front of the TV and clears the two guitars of the out way. He takes a step back, still chewing, and making the coffee table slide back into its original place. You follow after it as it moves with the food on top of it, then sit down on the couch once it’s back in place. He joins you a moment later, taking a second slice after he finishes the first one way too fast. 

You look over to him as you’re still eating your first slice, “So I know you’re not a normal guy obviously, but don’t you want to wear other clothes, rather than having your full suit on all the time. I saw you had some clothes in your big pile of stuff from earlier, do you need pajamas or something?” You question, just making conversation as you eat.

He shakes his head, “Oh no I have some stuff, I just don’t see the point of wearing different clothes all the time like you humans do, why bother?”

You shrug, finishing your first slice as well, “Well to do laundry for one thing.”

“Babe come on, you’ve seen me, why would I do that.” He says easily, pointing a finger and making the garlic bread float over to him from the table.

“I don’t know I’m sure pajamas would be more comfortable, don’t you want that?” You ask, reaching forward and breaking a piece off the bread he brought over as it’s in the air.

He takes the bread too, rips it in half to eat a piece that is much too large for one bite, then sends it floating back to the table. 

He looks up in thought for a moment, “Alright I guess that’s an okay reason.” He says, while chewing garlic bread and pizza at the same time.

“Exactly, so feel free, if you want. You can use the bathroom to change or--” You are cut off by him snapping his fingers and a fast breeze going by to suddenly replace his suit with new clothes. 

He’s got a stripey t-shirt, no surprise there, black sweatpants, and a pair of green socks with a little beetle pattern on them. They actually look marginally more clean than the suit he was wearing before, you doubt they are actually that clean, but he definitely doesn’t wear this nearly as much as his other outfit so it’s not as worn out. You should have known he would just do it with his powers, not get up and change like a normal person. You smile at him, he does look more comfy now and maybe like he is ready for sleep.

“Yeah see, don’t you feel better now!” You say happily, pointing at him after swallowing another bite.

“I guess, but I am fine either way.” He says easily, inhaling some more of the food.

You guys eat the pizza quietly after that, Beetlejuice teleporting some cups from your kitchen to the table to drink the soda in. You insist he does after he tries to just put his mouth right on the bottle and you have to physically stop him before he can do it. There is some background music playing next to you from the game that’s still on but not being played right now. The purple lady he was making while you were on the phone just looping an idle animation waiting for someone to come back and pick the controller up again. You finish up what you’re willing to eat and then stand up, stretching your arms over your head.

“Are you gonna finish all of this or should I put the rest away?” You ask, gesturing to the two remaining slices and the end pieces of the garlic bread.

He looks at the food and then back to you, “You can put it away, I won’t take it all this time.”

You start to pile the things up in your arms, “How gentlemanly of you.” You snicker.

“I know right, I’m very selfless and considerate.” He says with a big grin.

You just roll your eyes, making your way to the kitchen with everything. It doesn’t take you long to put things into their own containers and find a place to squeeze them into the fridge. When you come back out you see that he’s standing back up and scrolling through the music again, he gestures to your discarded guitar once you get back over to him.

“You wanna play more?” he asks, hovering over a Bon Jovi song.

You think for a second before laying back on the couch, “Go on without me! I’m too full, I just wanna lay down and rest the tum.”

He laughs, “Alright, whatever you say.”

You lay back against the armrest of the couch, crossing one leg over the other as you stretch out over the full length of the cushions which you usually can’t do anymore since he’s always sitting with you. He picks the song  _ Livin’ On A Prayer _ and starts to play, doing well again, but this one is harder so he’s missing more of them. You sing along from behind him, ramping up the volume as it gets to the chorus. The song keeps going and you get a fun idea, fullness be damned, you jump up off the couch and grab the TV remote, using it as a microphone as you yell the lyrics to the song and dance around the living room. You purposefully go in front of the TV a bunch and move around in front of him for the last minute or so until the song draws to a close. He ends up missing a bunch and doing really bad like you were before, you laugh when you see the score come up at the end.

“Damn babe, I was totally gonna get 5 stars before that!” He comments, looking at his poor score after you messed him up.

You just laugh, “Yeah but messing with you was a lot more fun than seeing you get another high score.”

“You’re just sour cause you can’t even get 3 stars.” He says, blowing a raspberry in the air at you.

You cross your arms, “I could too, I wasn’t even trying that hard!”

“Yeah, on  _ easy _ maybe..” He mumbles loudly on purpose.

You flip him off then, going back to the couch and plopping down, putting the remote off to the side. He follows after you and puts the guitar down to the side before he gets into his seat.

“You wanna do something else?” He asks after a small laugh.

“Nah.. I might turn in. I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night, I’m actually feeling pretty tired.” You say, looking at the clock to see that it isn’t too late but it’s not an unreasonable time to sleep.

“Aww that’s no fun, I thought we were celebratin’!” He pouts.

“We can keep celebrating tomorrow, we have the whole weekend anyway.” You say, feeling kind of bad for wanting to lay down.

He huffs in response, you smile, “Aw come on Bug, it won’t be too long, I’ll be awake again in no time!” You reassure him.

“Okayyy, go get your sleep, it’s fine. But I’m gettin’ tired of you humans needing rest, it’s boring out here all by myself.” He says, standing again to grab the controllers.

“You can keep playing if you want! I think my room is far enough away from the TV, I’ll be fine.” You say, standing as well.

“Nah, I don’t wanna wake you up by accident with my killer skills. Plus it’s more fun when you’re here anyway.” He says easily, putting all the controllers off to the side and turning the Xbox off.

You smile, “See what I mean? Not evil, you’re being nice!” You point out.

“Yeah but only to  _ you _ , but you’re getting the special BJ friendliness package, a once in a lifetime deal.” He says at the TV rather than turning to talk to you.

“This  _ does _ seem like a really good deal. What do I owe in return?’ You ask jokingly.

“Just access to your home. And your food. And attention.. And a wicked scheme every once in a while couldn’t hurt. Letting me watch you sleep if I want.. Maybe a bed at some point?” He lists things off, pausing and then making the list longer over and over.

You laugh, “Okay well I’ve checked most of those boxes, so I think I’m good for now.”

You walk up to him and ruffle your hand through his hair again, liking the feeling of doing so and the reaction you get out of it. He smiles warmly at the contact, but you retract it rather quickly, making your way over to your bedroom door. You turn back and look over at him before going in.

“Goodnight Beetle.” You say happily, leaning against the doorframe.

“Night’ Doll” He says softly, offering a small wave.

You retreat into your bedroom, closing the door quietly behind you. You can hear him shuffling things around out there as you get ready for bed, you hear after a bit that he’s watching a show on TV rather than sleeping. Hopefully that keeps him occupied and he’s not too bored waiting for morning to come. You open your curtains this time before settling into bed, thinking that might help you get up earlier tomorrow since you don’t have any Saturday alarms. After all the sooner you get up in the morning the more time you guys will spend together throughout the day, and you’re starting to look forward to that more and more each day.  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Revenge is a dish best served with spiders, amirite lads?
> 
> I hope I struck a balance between that sweet sweet revenge action, the serious stuff, and the light-hearted fun we all need in our lives. I wanted to make this chapter happen right and I just kept writing until it felt good to me, so sorry that caused it to take longer and also be like 14,000 words or whatever. I know that's a lot to read lol


	12. Late Night

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello!! Long time no post.. Sorry about that! Had some life stuff to deal with for a while and this chapter ended up huge again so it took longer to write. I have a pretty concrete plan for this story now after doing some planning and thinking, so updates should start to be regular again as long as nothing changes.
> 
> Enjoy!

The world is in greyscale. A black murky void of a place below you and a bright white sky at the horizon, everything is too bright and yet too dark all at once. You feel like you’re being pushed by something invisible, urging you forward. There are large toppling spires all around you, loosely connected with razor thin wires. Out before you, over the empty void is countless people, human-like figures inching across these wires above the nothingness below. They’re all much farther ahead of you, out in the middle of the air or nearly at the end on the other side. Meanwhile you’re being pushed forward, you haven’t even started walking across at all. Right in front of your feet, as you try to struggle backwards, is a thin wire that stretches straight ahead over the largest and darkest pit of them all. You’re nearing the edge now and the force pushing you is stronger than your will to not cross that threshold, you want to turn around, to run, but you can’t.

You are given a final shove and suddenly you’re out, floating above the void, your toes barely able to keep on the wire below. You try to hurry, to make your way across, to catch up to all those that are far out ahead of you. But it’s too much, the wire is too small and you can’t step carefully enough, the wind pushing at you is just enough to send you over the side. You fall off the wire that was barely keeping you up in the first place, you start plummeting downwards, watching everything that was up above getting smaller and smaller.

Are you the first person to not make it? The first person to go flying over the side? You can’t tell, no one else moves, no one else takes notice of you as you drift away from the light above. You feel like you’re falling at great speeds, but with hardly any point of reference you can’t tell. You’re trying to scream, make some sound, anything, but nothing will come. It’s like you’re suffocating, you can’t breathe in and you can’t do anything but open your mouth and attempt to yell, hoping that something will stop you before you reach the bottom of this pit. It all happens so fast, the light fades completely from up above you where you saw all those other people, you’re surrounded in darkness and suddenly you feel an impact and it’s like the bubble you were in pops.

It’s dark, but warm, you can breathe? You do the first thing that comes to your head and just scream. Surprising yourself at the volume that erupts out of you, having spent however long that was muted and unable to let anything out. Your eyes start to focus finally, and there’s light. A dim light coming in from your right, a window, you’re… in your bedroom. You hear something around you but you were so absorbed in the fear of what just happened that you couldn’t hear it until now.

“Babe, hello, answer me please, are you okay? Why were you screaming??” You can finally hear an insistent worried voice next to you.

You turn slowly from looking at your window to see Beetlejuice sitting at the foot of your bed, dimly illuminated from the light coming in from outside, he’s snapping his fingers in front of your face to try to get your attention. You blink slowly, your eyes getting accustomed to being open and taking in your dark room, you feel a couple tears prick at the corners as you do.

“I’m.. a- I’m alive?” You say quietly, looking at him with fear.

His face twists up with worry and he frowns, “Yes, yes you’re alive..”

He pauses and you just stare ahead at him with eyes widened for a moment before looking down but not saying anything in return. That fall, you know you felt yourself reach the bottom and it shook through you as it did. That wasn’t real? How could that not have been real?

He’s just staring back at you, waiting for you to say something, but you don’t so he continues, “ uh… here, look.”

He says quickly, scooting forward to sit in front of you and grabbing both of your hands into his, you just look down at this action and knit your eyebrows together.

“I.. don’t understand.” You whisper, not looking up.

“‘I’m cold, right?” He asks hesitantly.

You swallow nervously, “Yeah, freezing.”

He sighs, “Good. And you still feel really warm. So you’re okay. If you weren’t alive then you’d be this cold too, but you’re not, so don’t worry. You’re just here in your bedroom.” he says slowly.

You just sit there, shaking slightly, thinking back on everything you saw, everything you felt. It felt so vivid as it happened around you, you really felt it when you landed too, it was as if you fell back into your bed roughly rather than just woke up there.

“It.. felt so real.” You say with a crack in your voice, looking back up at him finally.

You can just make out the purple in his hair in the low lighting, “A nightmare?” he asks.

You nod, “I think so.. I just.. I thought for sure that I had died for some reason. I was falling, for so long.. Then, I was trying to scream and nothing happened, and I felt this-- this _impact_ like I landed on the ground.” you recount slowly, trying to piece it together.

He just listens quietly as you do, not letting go of your hands while you’re telling him about the nightmare. After a couple minutes he stops feeling so cold in your hands though, like some of your body heat is succeeding in warming him up. It’s a lot more pleasant once that happens, so you don’t let go either.

“Sounds pretty scary, since you’re afraid of falling and all…” He trails off.

You pause for a long time, “S-sorry I bothered you. I just.. As soon as I could I just let it all out, that’s why I screamed.”

“Don’t you even worry. All you did was interrupt Tom and Jerry, I don’t care.” He says, trying to smile and lighten the mood.

It works a bit, you give him a small smile back, “Okay great. Um.. and thanks for helping me realize that I’m fine. I should have known I was still alive when my bed felt so warm like it does.” You explain, almost embarrassed now after it’s over.

He nods, “That’s okay… sometimes when people die they don’t even realize right away, so it wasn’t unwarranted.”

You frown, “That sounds awful.. How would you find out then?”

“Well you might be trapped somewhere, or an important book might spontaneously appear where it wasn’t before. Or both… usually both.” He explains easily.

You just nod along, not really understanding what that means but not really feeling up to asking for any more information. You still feel afraid, not being able to shake the imagery from your nightmare, and honestly you feel completely drained after all that as well. Not really in the tired like you’re ready for bed kind of way though, you don’t know how you’re going to get back to sleep after that. 

You look down at your joined hands and squeeze his lightly, “You’re not cold anymore.” You comment.

He grins, “Yea, I’m sapping your warmth.”

You give a small laugh, “It sounds mean when you put it that way.”

You let go of him then, pulling your hands back and rubbing them together, feeling how chilled they got after holding onto him for a while. You lean back and grab your phone off your nightstand, seeing that it’s the middle of the night, you sigh.

“I don’t know how I’m gonna get back to sleep after that...” You say, letting your shoulders go slack.

“You can just try laying back down again.” He suggests with a shrug.

You bring your knees up to your chest and lean your head on them, frowning, “Yeah but what if the nightmare comes back.. I don’t want a continuation of that…” You pause for a while, “I’m.. scared.” You add quietly.

_Shit, I have no idea how to comfort people. What do I even do here? I make people afraid, I don’t.. help them feel better._

You look up at him again after a moment and see him looking away, he looks pretty upset and uncomfortable, and like he’s thinking really hard about something too. You don’t know what to do with him looking that way, because you’re not sure why what you said would give him that kind of reaction. You wait a bit to see if he’s going to say something, but he doesn’t so you decide to just make sure he’s okay.

“Hey.. um, are you alright, you look upset?” You try, hesitantly.

He doesn’t answer for a while, then he frowns “I.. well, I _want_ to help... but I don’t know how I can.”

You just look at him for a while, then you realize that he is probably not familiar with how to deal with a scared person in any other way than just making them more afraid, since that’s what he usually does. It’s sweet that he wants to help, but you don’t really know what he could do either. You think about it for a while, and the only thing coming to your mind is that when you were a kid your mom would come into your bedroom and lay down with you and hold you until you could get back to sleep after nightmares. But you are absolutely not going to ask him to hold you, that’s much too inappropriate. You’d settle for a hug though, a hug sounds really nice even if it won’t be a very warm one. Could you ask for that, would that be weird? It’s making you nervous to think about it, but you can’t deny that it would definitely make you feel better. You decide to try.

“Comforting people isn’t too hard ya know.. You just.. Um. You just gotta...” You try to keep going, and make an attempt at asking for what you want.

But you underestimated how hard that would be, given that you feel so nervous and embarrassed all of a sudden. You don’t know why, but you do, and it’s not easy to get the words out like this. 

“This shouldn’t be hard, friends hug each other, that’s normal. Yeah, totally fine.” You tell yourself, trying to push away the feeling of embarrassment. You look up at him and he looks confused but like he’s listening, so you just shake your head lightly and push on.

You force yourself past the nerves, “Could I have.. a hug?” You manage to ask, feeling like an absolute 4 year-old.

You look away to stare at a dark corner of your room and brace yourself for the response, just hoping he isn’t going to laugh at you. Nothing happens, then you feel the bed dip down in front of you slightly, so you look back to him again and see that he’s scooted in a bit closer and he’s put his arms up like he’s offering the hug you want. He looks embarrassed too, so at least you aren’t alone in that. Why is this so difficult? You’ve already hugged him once before, but you didn’t have to think this hard about it then you guess. You close the gap between the two of you and accept the hug easily, you let his arms go under yours so you’re hugging around his shoulders and your head is up by his. He circles around you and thankfully stays up at the top of your back, not getting handsy and going lower like you feared he might try, you didn’t want to have to swat him away. Once you’re fully in the embrace you shiver lightly from how cold the hug is, you knew he wasn’t warm by any means but being surrounded in it since he's wearing short sleeves too makes it feel pretty shocking on your skin.

“Sorry..” He mutters, and you feel the low rumble of him speaking against you.

You sigh a tiny laugh into his shoulder, “It’s fine, now I know I’m alive, remember?”

He snorts quietly in response, but doesn’t say anything else. Despite it being cold it is really nice, he’s got a large frame and big arms so you’re really enveloped and it helps you calm down. He starts running his fingers over the bottom of your hair while holding on, and you hum lightly, very similarly to what he did the day before when you were touching his hair. You hold the hug for a while longer, then let your grip go and slip backwards to a normal sitting position. Despite how cold he was to hug, you feel very warm still, especially on your face. You tell yourself it’s just embarrassment, and don’t think any harder about that right now. He lets his arms fall back down into his own lap after you lean away from him. He’s smiling and even in the low lighting that’s coming through your window you can tell that he’s got that light pink you saw the day before on him again, which leads you to believe he was okay with hugging you, but you don’t know what else he’s feeling about it.

_Well it’s a good thing you let go.. Cause’ I wasn’t going to._

You smile at him, “Thanks.. I should hopefully be able to get to sleep easier now.” You say, but it’s kind of a lie, because you’re feeling a lot of other things at the moment that might keep you up, you just aren’t necessarily scared anymore.

His expression wavers for a second but then he smiles back, “Okay uh.. So I guess I’ll get back out there.” He replies, pointing behind him to your bedroom door with his thumb.

You nod, feeling a little sad as he says it, but not stopping him as he stands up.

“Goodnight.. again.” He offers, before poofing back into your living room.

Why do you want to ask him to stay so badly? You glance over at the other side of your bed that’s empty aside from your laptop on it and then fall backwards against your pillow, letting your hair fan out behind you from the rush of laying down so quickly. That was weird, why was that so hard, and how come it felt so different from every other time you got close to him. You too are supposed to be friends. Was that too much, are you pushing the boundaries too far here? You let out a long sigh and look up at the ceiling, then you pull your pillow out from under your head and put it over your face instead. You’re feeling some _things_. You breathe into the fabric and groan, laying completely flat against your bed. You need help, you gotta talk to someone.

You sit back up suddenly, your pillow falling off you to the side and you grab your phone from its place down near your legs. You open it up quickly, squinting at the bright light before you can turn the brightness down, once it’s on you pull up your messages and swipe over to Vic. You hope she’s awake. 

You don’t know what to say so you just type, “You up?” into the box and hit send, then fix your pillow and lay back against it again, holding the phone against your chest. It’s not too long before your phone vibrates and you look at the screen to see that she is in fact awake.

“Yeah I’m here. Isn’t it like 3 am there? Why are you up?” She writes back.

You hold the phone above your face for a moment, frowning, “I had a nightmare, I can’t get back to sleep.” You type out, which is not exactly why you suddenly wanted to talk to her, but it isn’t a lie.

You guys go back and forth for a bit about that, you explain what happened in as much detail as you can remember. You go ahead and completely leave out the fact that your _friend_ , who she only knows as BJ, was the person who comforted you first because then you’d have to explain away why he is in your house in the middle of the night. You’re not ready for that conversation. After a bit of chatting she suggests changing the subject to get your mind off it, and you realize that you didn’t actually tell her about how the problem at your office is solved now.

So you start to explain that to her too, carefully leaving out any talk of the paranormal situations that happened there, instead just saying that there was a convenient and spontaneous infestation that isn’t suspicious at all. You explain that BJ thoroughly intimidated William, and that you even helped blackmail him some, and you both expect him not to return to the job. She praises you for being able to stand up to him and also for being conniving, which you accept without explaining any further how exactly you helped since it’s only half true. You also explain that Mr. Johnson had an allergic reaction to the bugs in the office and will be on an at-home leave for a currently indefinite amount of time, which she cheers at because she knows how much of a pain in the ass he is. The conversation is going great, until she changes the subject again.

“So, you and BJ, how’s that going?” She sends your way, plus a couple of suggestive emoji.

You frown at the screen. You figured she would ask, there kind of wasn’t a way to avoid it. You contacted her to begin with because you want to talk about it with someone so in a way you guess you _wanted_ her to ask, because you are having some conflicting feelings tonight and talking about them would really help you. You have a lot of questions, mostly about if you are stepping too far over normal boundaries for what is acceptable in a friendship. But you are also nervous to hear her answers.

“It’s going.. fine” You finally say back, not giving anything away.

“You made a move yet?” She shoots back, getting right to the point.

You huff at your screen, “Well, no. I told you, taken!” You keep up the lie you started earlier.

You know you’re lying to her, because he definitely isn’t seeing anyone, since no one could even see _him_ until recently. But at the time you had no other reasonable way to tell her you couldn’t date him, it’s not like you can just admit to her that you summoned someone and that your _friend_ isn’t actually alive.

“Why did she have to get this idea in my head in the first place, jeez... _Me_ , dating a demon, that’s crazy! Even if he is…” You think to yourself, letting your mind wander a bit.

He is, well, he’s not bad looking. You’ll give him that, even though he’s not very clean he still manages to look pretty good. He’s scruffy and chubby and kind of a mess, but that’s cute in a way isn’t it? And he just plays that up even more by attempting to ooze charm, even though usually it’s not very good. It was more funny than it was actually charming, but you guess that’s a good point too, it’s hard not to enjoy someone who can make you laugh. You shake your head and look back at your phone, realizing she’s answered you. You gotta stop getting lost in thought.

“Look, all I’m saying is you don’t know until you try okay.” She messaged back, completely ignoring your lie about him being with someone.

You look up at the ceiling again then, holding your phone tightly. Why is she making you question these things. It was easy to just ignore what she said before, but lately you have been feeling maybe a little different towards him. You’re getting a lot closer with him that’s for sure, tonight being no different. And after watching him go once you stopped hugging him, you can’t really shake that feeling that you had about not wanting him to leave. Well, there’s nothing wrong with thinking _hypothetically_ right?

“Let’s say I was interested.. Which I am _not_ , but let’s just pretend I was.. What can I even do about this.” You type out your reply five different times, deleting and retyping before you finally send it, already regretting that you’re giving in to her thinking.

She replies just a moment later, like she was waiting that whole time for you to hit send, “I dunno, maybe you could shoot your shot, if it seems like he’s into you.”

You scrunch up your face as you read her message. Him being into you? You hadn’t even really considered that, but there’s probably no way. Sure he’s been pretty nice to you, for the most part, and he’s helped a lot. But he’s been around for millennia or whatever and he’s probably banged countless ghost babes who are leagues better looking than you are. Plus he sure talks and acts like he knows how to put the moves on a girl, or guy, or anyone for that matter, so if he felt that way about you then why wouldn’t he have done that already? In a serious way at least, because he was flirting a bunch before but those were all obviously just jokes. 

She sends a second message before you even get a chance to reply to the first, “And have you guys spent a lot of time together?”

Again, you aren’t going to tell her that you live with him right now, but one particular day does come into mind at her question.

You pull up a photo and send it her way before typing out your reply, “Well we.. went here, he showed me this nice lookout spot up in the hills above my town, I didn’t even know it was there, it was a total surprise.”

The little bubble that shows she typing pops up immediately and goes very quickly, “Girl!! That was a date!! Are you sure he’s taken??” comes her excited reply.

You flip the phone down so the light isn’t shining into your face. That wasn’t a date. Was it? No. It was really short and she doesn’t know that he took you there using a supernatural power not with driving a car like a normal person. But it was pretty thoughtful of him to think to take you there, and you felt like you both had a good time out there talking before coming back. Plus there was that weird look he gave you when he caught you, after traveling back made you stumble in the living room. But it was just the side of a hiking trail! God, was she right? She can’t be.

Your mind wanders back to a phrase you think you remember him saying a while ago when you guys went shopping together, 'Dates can be anywhere.'

“Shit.. wait, is that really what he intended by going there or am I just reading into this too much..” You think to yourself, knitting your eyebrows together.

You roll over onto your stomach and bring your phone screen back to life, looking back at her message and seeing the last question. You know he isn’t _actually_ taken, but now you’ve backed yourself into a corner with this lie. What could you say?

“I.. I assumed so.” You type back, not knowing what else to do. You can’t help it, you know the lie is poorly put together at this point but you gotta make this seem normal and not let on that the concept of him being ‘taken’ was all just a ploy to not tell her you summoned a demon. 

You bury your head into your pillow while holding your phone, waiting for her reply for a good minute before it comes in, “What?! You don’t even know for sure!! He’s totally into you then, he took you on a date, you should at least try! Is he showing any signs of liking you?”

You read over her words several times. She’s just excited, there’s no truth to what she’s saying. Plus you can’t even prove that it was meant to be a date at all, it probably wasn’t. You push your face into the fabric of the pillow under you and huff a big breath out. She’s got you re-thinking everything now. And it’s agonizing. Is she just getting your hopes up unnecessarily or is she really onto something here. What even are you hoping for in the first place?

“Maybe.. I mean, he has kind of opened up to me more. And he is acting a little different than when I first met him.” You type out, looking at the message for several minutes before deciding to hit send. It’s true, what you typed is true but why are you having just such a hard time thinking about it.

“Y/N come on I know you aren’t dense, that’s what guys do! Maybe he’s just shy or something, you should really try!!” She sends back quickly.

You grumble at the phone, throwing it away from you to the other side of the bed. That’s crazy! Shy! She doesn’t know him at all, he’s anything but _shy_. You huff a frustrated breath and roll over away from the phone, pulling your blanket up and curling into it while facing away. You stare down over the edge of your bed and frown for a few minutes, then you groan and whip the blanket back off, rolling over again and grabbing your phone to type frantically.

“I don’t know!!! I.. said this was pretend, I am not interested. I was just thinking hypothetically.” You tap out, hitting send without even thinking about it further.

You go to toss the phone away from you again but it vibrates in your hand, “Why you lyin to me, and trying to lie to yourself--”

You stop reading the message early, click the power button to turn the screen off and push the phone as far away from you on the bed that it can go. You roll over again to face away from it, staring down angrily at the ground from your pillow.

“Why does she have to be so pushy and act like she knows everything! Always giving relationship advice and acting like she knows what’s best.. And and.. Uugghh” You think while frowning, groaning aloud in irritation.

You lay there huddled on your side, giving a glare to the darkness of your room. She was always a meddler, you shouldn’t listen to her anyway. She’s just reading into things that aren’t there! But you can’t deny that he has been nice to you, and kind of thoughtful, and pretty uncharacteristic in general for a supposedly evil demon guy from the nether world. Maybe you’re being unfair to her, and you’re just angry because she’s saying what you don’t want to hear.

“And she’s such a _damn_ _good_ friend…” You finally let yourself say in your head, taking a deep breath.

Because she’s right. She’s completely right, you are lying to her and yourself. You can’t say you aren’t interested at all, because you are a little bit, but that’s terrifying! You can’t honestly say he isn’t attractive, despite not looking like a normal human, in fact maybe being not-a-human might even be working in his favor or something. And if you’re being real with yourself, just being around him and being close with someone has been great after living alone for such a long time. But how come you didn’t realize she was right sooner, like when did that even start to happen? It all just felt so natural, despite the strange situation you’re actually living in right now. From Vic’s perspective this all seems completely normal because she doesn’t know what’s really happening, but it’s definitely not and that is going to make this a lot harder for you. So maybe she is right, maybe you’re a _little_ interested in him, in that way. That doesn’t matter, you can’t do anything about it, he’s not alive! That would be wrong. You huff out a frustrated breath again, sitting back up. You’re tempted to grab your phone from the edge of the bed and keep talking to her but you’re just not ready, you know what she is going to say if you actually admit this to her. She’s just going to tell you to go for it, but it’s not that simple, and you can’t even explain that part to her anyway.

You cross your legs on your bed and lean forward, sinking down a bit and frowning, “Stupid.. Beetlejuice, why do you have to be dead.. you’ve made this really difficult.” You mutter to yourself aloud.

You sigh, and then there is a breeze in front of you and the mattress dips down because there he is in your room. He pops up with no warning and you jump back from being startled, yelping in response.

“You called?” He says happily.

“Y- ...you heard that??” You stutter out the question, surprised to see him suddenly.

“Yeah it’s like I said, if someone calls me I can hear it anywhere.” He says easily.

You take a deep breath then, calming down from getting startled. But now you feel nervous after talking to Vic and kind of admitting you might actually be interested in him to yourself, because he’s here and he’s sitting on your bed again. You feel like a dumb school girl or something, this is ridiculous. Living with him is going to get a lot harder if you can't keep yourself in check.

After not saying anything back for a bit he keeps talking, “Still not sleeping huh?”

You nod, debating if you should just say you were talking to your friend or not, “Yeah.. I--”

He cuts you off, “You need another hug?” He smiles brightly in the dark of your room.

“NO! .. no.. I’m okay.” You say a little too quickly, feeling your face heat up in embarrassment.

_Damn._

“Suit yourself, I’m the hug master I’ll have you know, so you are missing out big time.” He plays, seeming to not take notice of your reaction.

You snort, feeling the embarrassment start to leave you to be replaced with the want to banter instead, “Who have you even hugged? You can’t be a hug master if you phase through people all the time.” You respond snarkily.

“Well _you_ , for one, and uh.. A dog once. And.. Let’s see...” He starts to look down in thought, counting on his fingers.

You can’t tell if he is actually trying to come up with a list based on memory or he if he just trying to think of some good sounding lies, either way you cut him off, “Plus your hugs are pretty cold, you’ll need to work on that in order to be a master hugger.”

“That’s discrimination!” he says with mock offense.

You laugh in response, “But it’s true!”

He seems to be thinking of something, but then quickly looks at you again and changes the subject, “Why’d you call me anyhow? You alright in here?”

You avert your eyes quickly, trying to sound casual, “Yep! I’m.. all good. I was just, thinking out loud, sorry.”

You glance back and see him smiling playfully at you, “Also, shut up.” You add flatly, already able to tell he was gonna make some kind of flirty joke or try to twist what you said to mean something else.

He laughs before continuing, “Are you giving up on sleep then? It’s pretty early, the sun is gonna come up soon.”

You look over at the window and see that the sky has begun to lighten a bit, you must have been on your phone a lot longer than you realized. You are definitely feeling pretty awake after he startled you, but you are going to need some more alone time after everything that happened tonight. There is a lot on your mind and you are going to need to get yourself together some more if you want to act normal around the house.

“No I’ll keep trying, I’m.. I’m very tired, I should sleep.” You say hesitantly, hoping that you sound convincing.

He tilts his head at you and gives you a weird look, and you just smile in return in hopes that he’ll believe you, “Alright if you say so…” He pauses for a bit then perks up, “Hey I know something we could do that would make you really tired!” He says excitedly.

Your mind immediately jumps to how that sounds a bit suggestive, you don’t think that would usually be your first thought but now was just not the best time for you. Instead of saying anything like that though you just squeak out a slightly panicked “What!”

He stands up from your bed, “So hear me out…. Giant human-sized hamster wheel, right here, on this wall” He gestures to the blank wall on the far side of your room, framing it with his fingers.

You lean forward and cover your mouth with your hand, feeling laughter bubble out of you suddenly at the wild suggestion. He really is very fun, that’s one of the main reasons why you’ve enjoyed all this time you both have spent together. You guess maybe it isn’t so far fetched that you might be a little interested, given that fact. Thinking about it now, maybe you’re actually worried for no reason, he’s just being his usual joking self so you can just act like you normally do too and nothing has to happen because of the realization you had tonight. That would be no problem you figure, settling from your laughter after a bit.

“Great idea right?” He plays, stepping back to the side of your bed with his usual smile.

“Yeah, could you run in it and power the house so I don’t have to pay an electric bill anymore?” You ask in return, leaning back against your headboard.

“I won't, no, but I could get a clone to do it. We would need to build some actual machinery for that though. Hook up the wheel to your electrical system somehow...I have no idea how that works.” He explains, look up in thought and actually pondering it.

You laugh again, “I’m just joking, I don’t want anyone running in a wheel for me.”

He just shrugs, “Whatever you say Doll, that’s an opportunity missed.”

You wave at him to stop messing around, feeling some warmth on your cheeks at the name he used for you. It hits differently after you’ve started to think of him this way, which might be a problem since he likes to use various pet names all the time for you. You didn’t pay much mind to them before, but now they stand out a lot more in the sentence.

He heads to the door, actually opening it to use it for once instead of just going through wherever he wants. He stands at the door frame for a bit and gives you a quick “Good luck!” and a wave since you’re going to try to get some sleep before it’s completely morning. You feel bad leaving him out there by himself for the whole night since you haven’t been asleep for most of it, but you really should try to get some legitimately restful sleep with no nightmares before you have to be awake for the whole day. You send him off with a little wave of your own and smile, watching him close the door behind himself to head back out into the rest of your house.

_That was weird, she was actin’ kind of on edge. Hope she’s still alright after that nightmare freaked her out.._

You let out a big breath you didn’t realize you were holding and slide down under your covers, pulling them up to your chest. Things will be fine, sure you might like him now, or something, but nothing has to really change right? You’re having plenty of fun as things are, you can just keep acting like you always have and he’ll be none the wiser. That’s fine, this’ll be easy even! You’re mostly calm, but a small part of you is filled with dread that this is gonna fuck a lot of things up. You settle into a good comfortable position and just concentrate on sleeping instead, that’s for the day’s you to figure out, current you, night time you, just needs some rest.

. . .

You creek open the door to your bedroom and walk out, sleepiness still clouding your head slightly despite taking the time to wash your face before coming out. It is really terrible how little sleep you got the night before, with it being interrupted and everything. You drag your feet over to the couch and plop down while you stifle a yawn behind your hand.

“Mornin’ sunshine, you actually got up before noon, I’m impressed.” He says jokingly from beside you once you get to the couch.

You just shrug, glancing at the clock to see it’s only a bit before noon so you barely made it, “Well I usually get up early on normal days, I could have definitely slept more, but I figured you were out here waiting for me and.. Uh..” You just trail off.

“Aww, didja miss me?” He asks in a funny voice, leaning in and batting his suddenly appeared comically large eyelashes.

You snicker lightly and push him on the arm, watching the big eyelashes disappear instantly, “Shut up, don’t put words in my mouth.”

You continue a second later, holding a hand to your stomach, “Shit I’m hungry…”

He snaps his fingers right on cue, a plastic container appearing on the coffee table, “Fridge pizza?”

You reach forward and grab it, “Hell yes, love me some cold next day pizza.” You mumble.

You pop it open and take a bite of one of the slices, settling back into the couch in a more comfortable position. Beetlejuice is just chillin’ next to you, you didn’t realize before but you look at the TV screen and see that he was actually playing on your xbox when you came out, he reached forward to the table a second ago and is now holding the wireless control and now using it to guide a car around a track on your one single racing game. You watch him race as you chew, he’s doing an okay job, but making use of the rewind feature to fix mistakes after he makes them.

You hold the container out to him once the track finishes, “Do you want the last slice?” You offer.

He reaches a hand out, then hesitates and stops, “Nah, you should have it, you’re the one who actually needs food.” He says then with a small toothy smile.

You nod, taking it back into your lap and looking down at the last slice. It’s the smallest one, but that’s okay, you pick it up and begin chewing it as well. Your mind brings you back to the night before, and the new feelings you realized you may have been harboring for a bit. It seems silly now the next day, but why were you worried? Things can just stay like this, it’s barely different than before. Eventually the feelings will probably subside and you can just go back to thinking of him as your friend, your roommate, like normal again. No reason to make a big deal out of it. You smile to yourself, finishing up the slice after a few minutes. You look back at the screen to see that he’s finished a whole cup and got 3rd place overall with the points he earned.

You snicker, glancing over at him, he frowns, “Hey, quit it, I think that’s pretty good for my first try.” He says, putting the controller down.

You just smile, “Sure, sure.”

He pouts and sticks his tongue out at you, causing you to snicker again much to his dismay. You dust the crumbs off your fingers and set the container down onto the table again. Just as you do it disappears and you hear a clatter in the kitchen so you know he made it go to the sink. You stretch your arms out with a straining noise and then slide forward off the couch to sit on the ground, leaning your head back against the cushions and closing your eyes. You hear some shuffling behind you so you peek an eye open to see him hovering above you and looking down.

“What are you doing down here?” He asks, a little close to your face for comfort.

You suddenly purse your lips and blow a thin stream of air at his face from below causing him to flinch back and shake his head.

You laugh lightly, “Nothing, just enjoying the ground.”

He smiles, “Alright then I guess I will enjoy the couch!” he says happily, laying down across the full length of it and then laying his arm over the top of your head.

“Hey!” You call, swatting at his arm as it rests heavily over your head.

“I didn’t know armrests could talk, how weird.” He says aloud, pretending you’re not there.

You grumble and scoot to the side, letting his arm fall off of you to dangle over the edge of the couch. This motion causes your hair to be swept over the front of your face so you shake your head and try to get it back to normal so you can see again, all while he’s laughing from next to you. 

You huff and think of getting back at him somehow, but decide against it, instead turning around to him to ask a question, “Hey, you wanna go for a walk?” You ask suddenly, choosing to ignore that he was messing with you just then.

He comes out of laughing and looks at you confused, “What am I, a dog?”

You smile, “Well, yeah you were one the other day.”

He looks up and taps a finger to his chin, “I forgot about that…”

Then he continues, “Well anyway I can’t, I do have to be a little careful about how many people see me. Unless you want to walk around while I’m tagging along invisible or something?”

You frown, “I didn’t think about that.. But why do you have to be careful?”

“I’m not gonna be _that_ careful if I’m honest, but I don’t really want word getting back that a lot of people are seeing ghosts or demons up here on the surface, someone might come looking for me.” He explains, sitting up more now.

You nod in understanding, then he continues, “Why do you want to go out all of a sudden anyway?”

You look around you for a bit, “I dunno, it’s too much of the same just being in here all the time. I wanted to get some fresh air and exercise at least a little bit since I’ve been eating a bunch of junk lately. I don’t want to start looking bad cause all I do is laze around the house and eat take out.” You explain.

“You shouldn’t worry about that, you look great.” He says with little hesitation.

Why does he have to say shit like that? You’re doing a great job of keeping it together over here and he has to go and compliment you so easily, that’s not very fair! You’re trying to think of something to say in return when he continues instead.

“But if you’re lookin’ for fresh air and stuff you can get out there, I’ll just chill here.” He says.

You frown, “Yeah.. but I want you to come too.”

He smiles warmly at that and you look down in thought for a bit, tapping your hands on your thighs in a rhythm as you try to think of something.

“Ah, I got it!” You say excitedly after a moment, turning around while he looks at you expectantly, leaning forward on his newly crossed legs.

“You don’t look too far off from a regular human, especially from a far. When I first saw you I just thought you were a weird homeless guy with a strange suit.” You explain.

“Uh.. thanks?” He says with a laugh.

You snicker, “No offense! But no, if you just um. Clean up your face a bit, and wear normal clothes kinda like you are now, I don’t think anyone will really notice. As long as you don’t like, fly, or conjure anything randomly, stuff like that.” You finish.

He frowns, “But I take great pride in this dirt, it’s good dirt.”

You laugh, “Come on, you won’t lose all of it!”

You stand up then, pushing the coffee table back and getting out from between it and the couch. You turn around and grab onto his arm to pull him to his feet as well, he follows but doesn’t look any less upset. You guide him to your room and then the bathroom, stepping inside and flicking the light on. 

You turn to him then,”Sit.” You say easily, pointing to the toilet seat.

He grumbles but goes over and puts the seat down to sit on, “Again, not a dog.. Right now.”

You laugh, shuffling through the cabinet above the sink for a second before pulling out some make up wipes and closing the little mirrored door behind you.

“Would you like it better if I said please?” You say playfully.

“Yes.” He says sternly, crossing his arms.

You smile, “Okay, can I _please_.. Use these on your face?” You ask, putting on an overly sweet voice.

He squints at the package and takes it from you, “Will it burn?”

You laugh, “No! Why would it burn?”

He opens up the little flap where you pull out the wipes and sniffs them, “I dunno! They smell.. Weird.”

You take them back from him, “It’s just coconut.” You say, looking to him for a final answer.

He looks up and sees you waiting, he looks nervous, “Okay.. I guess..” He says finally.

You open the package and pull one of them out, holding it up, “You sure? I won’t if you really don’t want me to.”

“Just get it over with!” He says then, rushing you but sounding normal again despite that.

You laugh, “Alright alright, calm down.” You say, putting the package down and holding the single wipe in your right hand.

You step in front of him where he is on your toilet and look down at him, “Don’t move.” You say, leaning down and starting at his forehead with it.

He flinches as it touches his face, “Why is it cold?”

You keep using it to wipe away at the dirt around his face as you talk, “It’s supposed to be refreshing!”

“It’s not..” He grumbles, fidgeting in his seat.

You hold a hand to the side of his head to stop him from moving, “Stop complaining, and don’t scrunch up your face so much.” You pause for a bit before adding, “Please.”

He closes his eyes and frowns a bit as wou work on him for a while, being careful to go around the moss that’s on the side of his face right near his ear, you don’t think a wipe would get rid of that and he would probably be really sad if it was gone anyway. As he gets cleaned up his face looks a good bit brighter, it’s still very pale and his eyes are still dark and a little sunken looking despite wiping away the dirt around them too. But overall after a good minute he does look a lot better, if anything people will just think he’s wearing strange make up if they see him up close. You stop the motion then, pulling your hand away that was holding onto him. He opens his eyes after you finish, blinking up at you. You laugh nervously, realizing how close you were to his face and lean away, taking a step back while you’re at it.

“You look.. Good!” You say finally, with a smile.

He stands up and shuffles over to the mirror to inspect himself, looking at his own face at a few different angles and making weird expressions in the mirror.

You laugh, “I thought you wouldn’t be able to see yourself in there? Or is that like.. A vampire thing.”

He doesn’t turn around as he answers, “Normal ghosts wouldn’t be able to, but I can.”

You move around to the side to look at his head as well while he gets a closer look at himself, and you glance up to realize there is something else that he’ll need in order to look normal. You tap his shoulder lightly and he turns to you.

“You might also.. Want a hat. Humans don’t have hair that changes that fast.” You say softly, pointing up at his head which has little tufts of pink on the sides.

_Shit, come on, don't tell me.._

He turns back at the mirror and looks a bit nervous, then a black beanie appears a moment later. It’s covering most of his hair except a little bit that sticks out in the front, he leans in and looks at himself again, scratching his fingers into his beard a little.

“I look like some kind of… skater boy..” He mutters into the mirror.

“She said see ya later boy.” You finish with a laugh.

He turns around to you fully then, “Huh?”

You just wave a hand at him, “It’s nothing.”

He stands up straight and fans his arms out at his sides a little, “So, this normal enough?” he asks.

You look at him up and down, he’s still in the clothes he used as pajamas, but yeah he does just look like a guy that is maybe into make up, or is just really tired, given his eyes. That wasn’t uncommon at all, so you think he’ll pass really easily out there so long as he keeps both feet on the ground.

You nod, “Yeah I think so, normal enough. You’re alive passing for sure.” You reply, still looking at him all around as you talk.

He nods back, a smile coming to him finally, “Alright, not bad then. I guess I can just dirty my face up again later anyway.”

You laugh, going past him to leave the bathroom, “Come on don’t do that, I worked hard and you look nice.”

He snickers as he follows you out, “So I didn’t look nice before?”

Your reply catches in your throat, because you’re about to say he’d be good looking no matter what, but that would be too much wouldn’t it? You’d be putting all your cards on the table if you said something like that. So instead you just let out a small nervous laugh, not answering the question at all because there was no good way for you to do so. Once out in your own bedroom you look back at him and decide to change the subject.

“I think you’ll just need some shoes--” You say, but he gestures down at his own feet as you’re talking to distract you.

You look down and see that he has a pair of sneakers on that you don’t think you saw before, “When did you do that?”

Before he can answer you continue, “Okay so, I’ll just get dressed, then we can--”

He snaps his fingers and you feel a quick breeze around you, you look down to see that you’re suddenly wearing a black tank top with a red and white graphic on it and some grey jeans. You pat your hands over yourself quickly, feeling your own clothes, and you have a real bra on rather than a sports bra. You whip around to him with wide eyes.

‘Did you do that? How-- did you see..?” You try to stutter out three questions at once, feeling flustered.

He just laughs, walking past you to your door and heading out to the living room, “Well come on! You wanna go right?” He calls behind him, not answering any of the things you attempted to ask him.

He can just do that to anyone, not only himself! That’s crazy, how can he do that? You shuffle through your dresser and look at where these clothes would have been if they weren’t on your body, and sure enough, they aren’t in your dresser so they are really just your things transported onto you, not duplicates or something. He better not have seen anything in between one set of clothes and the other! Does that mean that he could just make whatever he wants appear on you, or disappear? At any time? You feel your face heat up at the thought.

“Ah jesus, get yourself together here, oh my god.” You think to yourself, patting your face with your hands.

Maybe you’ve gotten yourself into trouble here, living with him, and liking him, you didn’t realize all the things he could do with those conjuring powers of his. You never even thought about how the way that he does stuff with himself could be done to anyone, you should have, because why wouldn’t he be able to, given everything else he can do? You collect yourself slowly, getting a pair of socks on while you sit on the edge of your bed. You dip into the bathroom for a second to check that you aren’t blushing using your mirror and to turn the light off, then you get out into the living room quickly.

You’re getting ready to scold him for doing that to you when you see that he has turned the TV and the xbox off and he is holding out the light jacket you have been using for weeks because it finally feels like spring out there. You walk up to him and take it, quirking an eyebrow at him after you slip it on.

“Couldn’t you have just made this appear on me too?” You ask, a warning tone in your voice.

He smirks at you, “Yes, but I don’t want you to be any more angry.”

You squint up at him, but then your eyes go wide as a sudden realization hits you. You turn on your heel and hustle over to the second smaller bathroom next to the entrance to the kitchen, closing the door behind you quickly. Once instead you look at yourself in the mirror, then unbutton and pull forward the hem of your jeans. You inspect the top of your own underwear and see that yes, they are the same ones you were wearing before, they haven’t changed. You sigh, doing your pants back up, that’s a relief. You were gonna kill him if he did that without permission, figuratively of course, but still. You comb your fingers through your hair a bit and then put a clip in that was sitting on the side of the sink, figuring it’ll be nice if the wind wants to blow your hair around. You head back out then and turn off the light behind you.

You walk up to him again as he smiles at you, “Well did you wash your hands?” He plays.

You slap a hand onto his arm and use the hold to take him through the front door with you, mumbling a stern “Shut up.” as you do. He just laughs as you drag him outside, then you lock the door behind you after you do, letting go of him and tucking your keys away into your pocket once you’re done.

“So where to?” He says easily, appearing a big hoodie as well now that he’s out here in front of your house.

You turn around to look at him, “Careful, don’t just make stuff appear now that we’re out here. And isn’t it a little warm for that?” You ask, stepping up beside him and starting to turn left from your walkway.

He follows after you as you start to go, “Rethink that question babe.” he says, putting his hands into the pockets of the hoodie.

You pause a moment, “Right. Always cold, I forgot.” You say, realizing the mistake, choosing to ignore the pet name even though it does make you smile a bit.

He snickers next you and keeps the pace perfectly as you walk down the sidewalk. You glance down just to make sure he’s walking and not floating, he notices you looking.

“I got it, don’t worry. I am very sneaky and I am gonna do great going undercover.” He says easily, and you can’t tell if he is joking or not.

You laugh anyway, “This isn’t a movie about secret spies or something Beetle.”

He cracks a smile at you, “Hey, that isn’t a very human nickname.” He says playfully.

You smirk back at him, “You’re right, sorry, _Lawrence_.”

He glances away, his face faltering a bit. You put a hand on his shoulder to reassure him as you both go slowly down the street.

“What would you prefer me to call you then, since we’re in public?” You say a bit softly, realizing maybe that was a bit insensitive of you.

He thinks for a moment, brightening again quickly, “How about.. Honey?”

You do a double take after he says that, looking back up at him confused, but he keeps going, “Baby? ..Darling?” He plays, clasping his hands together and holding them up next to his face to look at you with a mockingly sweet expression.

You laugh nervously then, feeling a bit of warmth at the thought of that, but the pet name stuff was his thing, you can’t do that confidently and act like it’s no big deal like he can. He’s obviously joking, so you just play along.

“And what, sound like you do? No way.” You say, shaking the nerves out and trying to sound casual.

After a moment you continue, “How about _Mr. Juice_.” You play, putting on a deep voice.

He laughs too, then makes a mocking offended face, “Pfft, please, Mr. Juice was my father!”

“Actually?” You ask, curiosity taking you out of the bit.

“Nope, I have no idea who he is.” He says then, like it’s totally normal.

You just frown, “Oh.. um..”

He starts looking over the road that you’re walking next to, not really noticing that you’re in the awkward position of not knowing how to approach what he just said. You’re trying to think of something to say back as he seems to be inspecting a large tree that stretches out over the road a good bit.

Suddenly he nudges your arm with his elbow, “Babe watch this.” he says quickly.

You look past him and see him nod his head up at the tree, then a large branch falls down off of it suddenly into the road. Landing just perfectly on time to have a car that was driving along have to break hard to stop before hitting the piece of the tree. You can see the driver looking surprised from in his car, then looking back behind into his rear view mirror to try to figure out a way to back up and go around once he’s stopped. Beetlejuice is snickering next to you, and you hit him lightly on his arm.

“Hey! That could've hurt somebody!” You say, knitting your eyebrows together and looking up at him.

He looks back to you, “Noo, I timed it like that on purpose. I just wanted to scare them, not crush them. If I was gonna do that then I wouldn’t have missed.” He says easily.

You grumble, “Well, still, be careful! Scaring people is fine but like.. Don’t get carried away.”

He smiles at you, “Yeah yeah, goody two-shoes.”

You huff, “I am not! I’ve done plenty of bad things, I just don’t want random innocent strangers to get crushed by trees!”

You glance around you then and check for people, realizing that sounds kind of strange out loud. Luckily no one is within earshot of you, just a couple people jogging back behind you both, plus the distant rumble of some kind of construction made it hard for your voice to travel far anyway.

He snickers, “What bad things did you do before you met me then?”

You cross your arms, “I’ll have you know that me and some of my old high school friends made it a game to see how much shit we could get away with stealing from some convenience and department stores in our area. I was the only one of us that never got caught either!” You say proudly.

He smirks, “Not bad, not bad. What else?”

You look down, that was kind of your only card in terms of bad stuff though, “I uh.. I cheated on tests in school, I didn’t get caught doing that either.”

He smiles, “That’s not a big deal. I think what you’re really good at it is getting away with things.”

You smirk, “Yeah it’s cause no one suspects me. I look too innocent and nice!”

He laughs, “That’s true. You look much too nice to be hanging out with someone like me.”

You blush lightly, “What is that supposed to mean?”

He snickers, “Nothing nothing, it’s just that your demeanor screams ‘I’m so pure of heart I could be the protagonist of a kid’s cartoon’ very loudly.”

You scrunch up your face at him, but he continues before you can say anything, “Don’t worry though, I can see you’re got some real _fire_ in you. If those teachers had gotten to know you better they would have seen that you were capable of fuckin’ their shit up.” He says happily, patting you on the back a few times as he’s talking.

You beam up at him, “Yeah! I cursed out one of my college professors once, you should’a seen the look on his face!”

He laughs loudly, “What! You did that? What did he do, grade your paper wrong?” He jokes.

You smile smugly, “No, whenever a teacher did that I just wrote out a detailed but stern email requesting, with evidence, that my grade be raised.”

He groans, “Oh my goddd. No wonder you work in an office.”

You laugh, “Nah but the guy was being a blatant homophobe in class, a total asshole. I told him off, then went to the faculty office and got him written up.” 

He nods approvingly, “Not bad, I would have just possessed him and walked him off a roof or something though.”

You laugh at his harsh comment, turning a corner with him beside you still, “Yeah I know you would have.”

Once you get around the corner you see the source of the loud construction noises you were hearing before, it looks like a truck is set up and there are some guys out on the street that are tearing up a speed bump for some reason. They’re wearing these bright orange vests with the town’s name on them and one guy was even breaking up the asphalt with a jackhammer. It was really loud, if you had known sooner where this was happening then you would’ve gone a different way. But it’s too late now, this was the only connecting street for a good bit, you would have to go up a big hill for a while to get to another street that cuts in this direction. You trudge on anyway, wincing a bit at how much noise there was next to you. Beetlejuice doesn’t seem to care very much though, just walking alongside you on your left slightly farther from the street. Suddenly the guy on the jackhammer stops for a while and goes to sit down on the back bumper of the truck, that was the main source of the loud sounds so you sigh in relief, glad that he’s taking a break right when you’re going by. Though maybe you felt relieved too soon. Off to your right you hear a long whistling sound, you glance over to see a guy with a shovel standing off to the side from where you’re heading.

“Hey baby, what’re you wearing those tight jeans for huh, why don’t you bring that ass over here?” He jeers.

You bristle at what he says, and you think you might hear Beej literally growl next to you. You can handle this though, you’ve heard punks on the street say worse. You stay confident and don’t look directly at him, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of your attention. This is easier too since you’re with someone, you know you don’t have anything to be afraid of here with a literal demon walking next to you.

“Yeah and what’re you wearing that ugly ass face for? Why don’t you do us all a favor and fall down a manhole, huh?” You call out to him, smiling triumphantly to go with your insult.

He laughs but with an anger edge to his voice “Oh yeah, feisty are you? Why don’t you come over here and say that shit to my face.” He spits back, sounding aggressive as he leans his weight on his shovel and stares at you.

You’re about to say something in return when Beetlejuice leans around you to stare him down angrily and respond instead, “Hey fuck off, asshole.” He says loud enough for him to hear, and you see the guy fall over, the shovel flying out from under him and you know it’s the ghost’s doing.

You laugh seeing him tumble to the ground, he grabs hold of the shove again and wipes his hand across his face from down on the pavement, looking like he’s absolutely fuming. He glances up at you both from the ground as you’re starting to go past him now.

“Oh who is that, your _boyfriend?_? What a fuckin’ loser” He calls out just as you’re both about to be past him on the sidewalk.

Beetlejuice growls again and turns back around to face him as the guy is standing up, “Why don’t you get lost pal before this _loser_ kicks your sorry ass!” he calls out, taking a step forward closer to where the construction worker is now standing.

You look up at him in panic, seeing the little tuft of hair that isn’t hidden in his hat is starting to turn red. Damn it, why does he have to have such a temper, this guy isn’t worth this much energy! You rush back to where he is and grab hold of his hand, starting to lead him away down the sidewalk to get off this street all together. The construction guy keeps going, egging him on, but luckily he turns back to you once you start pulling him forward so he begins to ignore the guy as well. You sigh, glad that you didn’t have to actually break up a fight today, not that you would really mind seeing that dude getting beaten up, he is an asshole. You both get a decent amount down the street away from the construction and you hear the louder noises start back up behind you then.

“Hey babe what gives, I could’ve taken him! I wanted to fulfill that manhole thing you said, I would’ve gotten him trapped down there too.” he says then in confusion, walking next to you.

You sigh, “I know you could, but, I don’t want to be causing any scenes you know? Remember the whole ’undercover’ thing?” You reason.

He shrugs, “Yeah I guess. He deserves it though.” He grumbles.

You nod, “I know, but it’s fine, that’s just life ya know, people are assholes.”

He makes a disapproving sound but doesn’t say anything back, you glance over at him to see him frowning at the ground but his hair isn’t red anymore from what you can see, so you figure he’s okay and that he’s calmed down some.

“It kinda looks like he’s right by the way..” He says quietly.

You look at him in confusion, “...What are you talking about?”

He makes eye contact with you and gestures to your hands, “Ya know... Cause’ he called me your boyfriend.” He says, laughing lightly like it’s supposed to be a joke.

You flush, looking down at your joined hands and mentally hitting yourself. Damn it, why are you so dumb, you should’ve let go way back after you first dragged him away, now it’s been a couple minutes of holding hands. You were enjoying it so you guess you just forgot to be less obvious. You let go quickly then, looking away in embarrassment.

“Sorry! I.. just forgot, we were..” You try to explain.

He laughs again, clearly not thinking too much into it like you are, “I don’t care, we still can if you want to. That guy doesn’t know us, fuck him.”

You shake your head, not knowing how to say that you shouldn’t do that, because you do want to, but you’re not just gonna tell him that outright. You notice that you’ve gotten pretty far from where you live at this point, actually being able to see the downtown area a couple blocks away that had more stores and less houses. You decide to just change the subject because what else can you do?

You stop then at the corner instead of turning in one of the two directions, “Do you want to head back? It’s been a while, I think I’m done with all this fresh air stuff.”

He taps a finger on his chin and looks around, “Yeah...sure.” He says distractedly.

You look at him in confusion, “What are you looking for?”

He takes your hand again then without saying anything and you feel your face warm up like before, he starts to lead you to the left down the sidewalk a ways. This is the worst, maybe acting normal is going to be a lot harder than you originally thought. You follow behind him and he takes you over to a tall fenced in area on the side of a house that looks like it leads to someone’s garage. You feel worried being right up near where someone lives, not wanting the people in their house to see you on their property.

“Why are we back here, this is trespassing, they might see us!” You whisper yell at him, tugging at the fabric of his hoodie with your free hand.

He turns back to you once you’re both out of sight from the sidewalk, “Not if we hurry!” He says easily, letting go of your hand to instead hold out his arms to you.

Oh, that means sense, he can just take you both back instantly rather than walking all the way there. That’s a good idea actually, and he even thought to do it out of sight from other people too! Well that is other than the people in the house that could potentially look out of any of their windows and see you right now, you better hurry like he said. You glance from his face to his current position and just decide fuck it, embarrassment be damned, this’ll be the easiest way to go anyway. You go forward to him and accept the hug easily, slipping your arms around the middle of him and being face to face for just a second, but he’s taller than you so you can just duck to the side and keep your head up near his shoulder instead to avoid being that close to his face. He wraps around you too and then the pressure happens not a second later, you hold on tightly as the wind whips around you both. But honestly even as it’s happening this is easily the best time you’ve had traveling this way, you don’t even really feel afraid at all because it’s really secure in his arms and you’re very certain you aren’t going to be falling anywhere. You both get back a moment later, you can tell you’re in your living room again right as you open your eyes because from over his shoulder you see the green curtains that now reside on the window next to the TV. You smile, that was a good day when you got those new curtains, you really did make a great decision.

It occurs to you then that neither of you have let go yet, but you have an excuse at least because you’ve been unsteady after teleporting with him before so you take this opportunity to hold on just a little longer. You hum softly for a moment against the thick fabric of his hoodie before stepping back and standing on your own again, smiling up at him.

He looks a little nervous but smiles too, reaching back and scratching lightly against the back of his neck as he stands a good arm’s length away now. You walk past him and take your jacket off and leave your shoes by the door, letting the warmth you were feeling fade a bit before turning back to talk to him again. He’s just standing off to the side, he hasn’t removed any outer layers, you didn’t really expect him to.

“Thanks for that! I kind of forgot we could just come straight here, I was not looking forward to making the long trip back once we got that far.” You say, sounding casual as you hold onto your jacket in your arms, not having hung it up yet.

He looks over at the clock by the TV, “Yeah, wow, we were out there for a while!”

You nod, then he continues, “So I was thinking.. I wanna go out and scare some people again.” He pauses for a bit, “Is that cool?”

You take a few steps closer, “Yeah! Of course, you can go out! I said before you don’t need to ask permission.” You assure him.

He smiles softly, “Yeah I just want to make sure, cause’ if you want me to stay here then.. I can do that too.” 

You smile in return, “You’re with me all time! If you want to go have fun then do it, I know you’ll come back.” You say back, fidgeting a little with the zipper of the jacket in your arms.

He grins, “Yeah, of course! Okay.. then I will.” He says happily, snapping his fingers to give himself his staple suit again, losing all the other normal clothes including the hat.

You take a peek up at his hair and sure enough it’s got a little of that light pink again, you swear it’s like it keeps showing up at completely different times, what could it be about? You just smile though, looking over his change of clothes, it’s a weird choice for sure but it is hard to imagine him without all the stripes after seeing him like that for so long. He gives you a goodbye wave and you raise a hand to send him off, then before you know it he’s poofs right out of your living room. You hang the jacket up on the little rack on the other side of your door and then empty your pockets onto the short circular table there.

_Am I crazy or does she seem pretty keen on being close to me today? Last night she was pretty freaked out, and then she was acting strange after I heard her say my name in her room. I wonder what’s going on with her. Not that I mind, it’s been really nice, but she’s gonna figure me out sooner or later if she keeps doing that… Me and this shitty hair giving it away. Yeah, that would be really bad if she realizes._

You sigh contently, looking around the room. You don’t feel scared or worried this time, you feel reassured since the last incident that he’ll come back because he promised. But still it was a little lonely being in the empty house now that you’ve gotten so used to him being here all the time. That’s okay though, you do still like your alone time and you haven’t had that in a while! You go to start walking into your room but you pause, heading over to the couch instead and taking the blanket that you gave to him. He won’t miss it while he isn’t here, this is fine, you take it with you to your room and set it on the bed before you get changed into more comfortable clothes.

You hop into bed, moving your blanket over to the side and using his instead, you pull your laptop onto your lap and open it up. Maybe some PC games today, you haven’t done that in a while, you can see if any of your online friends are available right now to chat as well. As you wait for the computer to boot up so you can sign in, you reflect on this afternoon. After just having a simple little walk with him outside it’s pretty obvious that acting like normal now that you’ve realized you're interested in him is going to be much harder than you thought. It just didn’t really occur to you before how close the two of you have gotten and it’s hard to think of it in any other context now that you realized you would probably enjoy being affectionate with him. You sigh gently, maybe while you’re on the computer you should chat with Vic again, she would know what to do right? But she doesn’t know how complicated this is. You’re going to have to figure this out soon though, because you’re not sure you can keep up the normal casual act with the way he is.

The laptop screen shows you a nice picture of a landscape suddenly and you finally get the chance to sign in. You smile as you type in your password, knowing that you can just relax for now and have a fun afternoon in bed like you used to do all the time. You enjoy getting to be absorbed in some games or videos or whatever and have a good time instead of worrying so much, it used to be your favorite way to forget about the stress at work or whatever other problems you were having. Although maybe recently you have had a new favorite way of doing that instead, it was still nice to get back to your older ways sometimes too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah yes.. the time has come.. reader finally likes the bug man.
> 
> Hopefully that wasn't too rushed, I always had the plan that good ol' friend Vic would be the one to push reader into realizing what was going on, so I hope I did that justice!
> 
> Thank you for reading <33


	13. Long Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello my good readers, I'm really sorry for the long wait.. I swear, this chapter really got away from me, I spent so many different sessions writing it but it still took so long in the end. I hope that's okay, since it's here now! Enjoy <3

You phase out the side door of some poor sap’s house into a rather empty backyard as a cascade of screams erupt from behind you thanks to the family that lives there. You laugh lightly to yourself, thinking of the railings that you turned into snakes and the melted TV in the living room that they woke up to after you purposefully caused a loud racket to startle the household into coming down the stairs. You dust off your sleeves and straighten your tie a bit as you take a few steps around in the grass that fills this yard you’re in, looking around to see if there are any other nasty surprises you can leave for them to see later on while you’re here. Off to the side you spy a small shed in the corner of the fenced in area, you walk over and poke your head inside to see that it’s fairly empty in there aside from some tools and gardening supplies. You grin and fill the place with several bats before heading out to walk along the roof of some other house instead of hanging out in a spot you already hit.

You scan your eyes over the different roofs surrounding you, you’ve started to get through most of the homes around here at this point and it was becoming a little too same-y since everybody had a very similar suburban house and standard sized family to mess with. You could really use some variety but how would you even do that, head to the city and haunt a cramped apartment? Sounds much too lame for you, the more space the more possibilities after all. You sit down on the roof you’re currently occupying and blow out a long puff of air, propping your head up on your hand as you stare off at the street below.

_ What time is it I wonder? Should I go back now? I don’t want her to worry, but she did tell me to come out here and have a good time… _

You appear a small alarm clock in your hands and see that it’s really late in the middle of the night, which you had figured based on the dark sky, but at least now you know how many hours past midnight it is. You click in a button on the clock to make it start ringing loudly in an annoyingly high pitched tone, then chuck it roughly behind you so it ends up in someone’s yard down below. You snicker as you hear the sound in the distance, knowing that it will be shitty for a lot of people tonight until one of them around here comes and turns it off. You stand up then and smooth a hand over the front of your shirt, the part that’s exposed between the unbuttoned sides of your suit jacket.

_ I guess I’ll head back, she’s probably asleep at this point, but I’m done here anyway. It wouldn’t hurt to check if she’s still up. _

You bring yourself back to the house easily a moment later, appearing in the living room with a small gust of wind. You look around and see that all the lights are off except the small light above the stove in the kitchen. You snap your fingers and turn a lamp on in this room so you can see easier, realizing that you were right, she must be asleep already since everything was off. You frown, again you managed not to time this very good, should you just start wearing a watch? You walk over and sit down heavily against the cushions of the couch.

_ Well, what to do.. I could try to get better at that racing game I guess, look for a movie? Hmm.. Maybe I should just sleep, the morning will be here quicker that way too. _

You ponder to yourself for a couple of minutes, trying to decide on some way to pass the time until she’ll be awake again. You deflate after a bit, not really feeling up to any of the things you can think of, so you decide to just get some unneeded rest until the sun is up again. You look around then and realize that your blanket is nowhere to be found. That’s strange, it’s always right here on the couch, did she put it away? You get up then and float through the house to the small hall closet, looking inside for a minute but not seeing it. She did mention laundry once, maybe it’s in there? You go over to the other door that’s near her bedroom and step through it to get inside, flicking the single light on once you’re in. It's a small little room, barely not a closet itself, with a washing machine, dryer, and a single long shelf inside. The shelf is just littered with various cleaning supplies so you bend down and open up the door to the washer and the dryer, seeing that both are empty inside. You spy a lone sock in a crevice of the dryer so you pick it up and disappear it from your hand, returning it to the drawer where you know she keeps the rest of them.

_ Damn babe.. Where’d you put this thing? _

You mentally go through the big pile of things you have that you often conjure stuff up from just to make sure you didn’t send the blanket away at some point and forget, but sure enough it’s not there either. You scratch at your chin as you float out of the tiny laundry room, looking over at her door. Well you were trying to be good and respectful for a while by not going inside while she’s here unless you’re called, but it’s just a bit too tempting not to investigate. You go over and phase through the door easily, arriving on the other side to see a mostly dark room, just a bit of light coming in from her open curtains thanks to a few street lamps outside and the moon. In the dark you can make out the figure of her sleeping on the right side of the bed facing inwards, scrunched in on herself a bit, her laptop off to the side next to her as well as a big balled up blanket that she isn’t using.

_ Ah ha, jackpot! _

You make your way over there quietly by not touching the ground at all and pick up the blanket she isn’t using, but it looks blue in the dim lighting and is a completely different texture. Huh? You bring it over to the window to use the light for a closer look and sure enough, this is her normal blanket, not yours like you had thought. You go back to the bed and put it where you found it, squinting over at her and crossing the room to the side where she’s laying. Once you’re a bit closer you kneel down next to the bed and you see that she’s completely wrapped up in a different blanket, which you hesitate for a second to reach out and touch. You pat a hand over a part of it that’s draped over the edge of the bed and you can tell right away that this is yours, it’s got the fluffy texture that she said was too warm for spring, but very much not too warm for you.

_ A blanket thief huh? Did she get cold or something? _

Your train of thought is interrupted as she starts to mumble quietly right near where you’ve positioned yourself.

“Hmm.. bug..” She says, muffled by the blanket.

You freeze, that’s something she started to call you, is she awake? Did she see you?

_ I’m caught, she’s gonna be angry, I shouldn’t have snuck in here, shit-- _

But then she just rolls over, facing where you are on the floor, and you can tell based on the part of her face that’s partially showing that she’s still asleep. You sigh lightly, relieved that you haven’t been caught where you shouldn’t be. You should really get out of here, you’re pushing your luck by being right up next to the bed where she’s sleeping anyway, if she wakes up and sees you she’s just gonna get mad, think you’re extra creepy, and send you out. You stand back up, debating whether you should get blanket-based revenge and take the one she isn’t currently using for yourself, but then again, if you do that she’ll know you were in here for sure. You’re broken out of your internal debate by her talking in her sleep again from right beside you.

“Mnn..  _ Please _ ” She whines quietly into her pillow, a soft moan escaping as she shuffles around a bit more.

Your eyes go wide and you instantly transport yourself back to the living room empty handed. You definitely weren’t supposed to hear that, why did you have to be unfortunate enough to be there at the perfect time to hear it anyway.

_ God that was hot. That was so fucking HOT. _

You pull a bit at your own hair, plopping down onto the couch heavily and then covering your face in yours hands. What was that! She’s probably busy having a  _ real _ fun dream in there and it is taking all your willpower, which you don’t have much of to begin with, to not just go back in there and listen for more of the sounds she was making. Because that’s what you  _ want _ to do, but the risks are high, if she happens to wake up it’s not like you can hide, when you’re supposed to be fully invisible  _ she _ can still see you. You heave out a big sigh, standing up from the couch once more. You take a glance over your shoulder to her door again and then shake your head roughly.

_ No no, I can’t, I shouldn’t. Damn it, I need to get out of here. _

Being here just isn’t going to work tonight, not after that, because that sweet sweet sound you heard is gonna be all you can think about if you don’t leave to somewhere, anywhere else. Hell, it probably will still be the main thing on your mind anyway even if you do go somewhere else. You’re in pretty deep here aren’t you? You let out a big breath you don’t need to be holding in and walk across to the other side of the room, pacing for a bit then deciding for sure to just spend your time elsewhere for now, you’ll have to come back at some point when the sun’s up at least. That long should be enough time to get past this right? You hope so, you really don’t need to be acting  _ more _ obvious around her at this point. The last thing you need is her catching on that you’ve got the hots for her and then deciding you’ve got to go because of it. You flick the lights back off quickly and travel away with that thought, better to play it safe anyway, not being here means not being as tempted to snoop around again. 

* * *

The brightness of the sun and an uncomfortable warmth stirs you awake, you open your eyes half way and peer forward at your nightstand which is half illuminated thanks to the mostly open position of your curtains. You prop yourself up on your arm and grumble, rubbing the sleepiness from your eyes as you do. Once you’re more awake you look around you in the bed and realize that’s why you’re so warm, you are using the fluffy blanket you gave Beetlejuice before instead of your own. You must have fallen asleep watching something and forgot to switch them back out to use your own blanket instead, which is a much lighter fabric that’s good for the later spring and summer months. And speaking of him, your face warms up as you recall what you just woke up from.

“Okay brain, if you’re trying to let me know that I think he’s hot then I got your message loud and clear! Jeez..” You think to yourself, sitting up fully and knocking your knuckles against the side of your head lightly.

You think you woke up from feeling much too warm, which you are going to chalk up to the sun and the blanket mostly, but you’re sure that the not-so-innocent dream you were having about him didn’t help. You shake your head lightly as you pull the blanket off and swing your legs around to hang off the edge of your bed. You don’t recall most of the details, but you know it was pretty steamy, and you don’t have those kinds of dreams often. But when you have in the past they usually didn’t involve any specific person, so this was kind of a first. You sigh, combing your fingers through your hair, so it looks like it’s pretty solidified that you have a crush on him at this point. You weren’t really raised to be very coy or shy in nature, should you just come out with it and tell him? It would probably save you some embarrassment if you were up front about it right away, but what if he’s put off by it and telling him makes him want to leave?

You stand up off the bed, stretching lightly, it’s too early for big deep thoughts like that though, you should just drink some water and take a shower so you can get ready for today. You find your phone hidden in the blankets on the bed and check the time, seeing that it’s nearly noon again, you have to stop doing that. You pocket it in your shorts and walk over to your nightstand, shaking your water bottle and seeing that it’s completely empty.

“Thanks past-me, now I have to go all the way to the kitchen.” You mumble to yourself with a grimace, turning around to trek out your bedroom.

You pad over to your door and out into the living room easily before freezing in your tracks, seeing Beetlejuice poke up from his place on the couch to look at you. Somehow you forgot that he could just come back whenever he wanted, and that he could very well be out here right now, and you came out anyway not prepared at all. You’re wearing a pair of small pajama shorts that don’t come down nearly far enough on your thighs to be around another person, a loose-fitting t-shirt with no bra, plus you have unbrushed hair and a sleep-weary face in general. So definitely not the best look, you make eye contact with him for a moment but he doesn’t hold it and you can tell his gaze is eagerly sweeping over you from his place over the back of the couch.

You swallow thickly and fold an arm over your chest, “H-Hello!” You say awkwardly, stumbling over a single word reply in what is probably the least smooth attempt you’re ever made at speaking.

You swiftly hustle off to the kitchen so at least there will be a wall between the two of you again to hide your embarrassment, and the way he was looking at you sure didn’t help! You quickly fill your bottle with filtered water and some ice, having a sip before taking a deep breath and going back out into the living room. You can see that he makes a point of not looking anywhere but directly at your face this time when you address him on the way past.

“I didn’t know you were back! I’m just gonna shower, ..I’ll be out again soon!” You say quickly, not intending on staying for conversation right now.

He nods, “Sure! Uh.. take your time! I’ll just, be here.” He replies, sounding awkward himself.

_ Fuck, she looks real cute this morning. But I think I eyed her up too hard. I gotta keep it together, be casual. I just have to concentrate more...Jesus, why is this so difficult?  _

You offer a quick smile so everything seems normal before heading off to your room and closing the door behind you. Once there’s something between the two of you again you frown and sigh hard, that didn't go very well at all but you’re relieved that at least the embarrassing part didn’t last too long.

“Okay, reminder for my future self, just fucking, get dressed every time before leaving your room! You don’t live alone anymore!” You scold yourself in your head, walking over to the bed and sitting down to drink your water.

How could you just forget that he would probably be out there? Sure he was gone for most of yesterday but he still lives here, he was going to come back eventually. You feel stupid now that you did that without thinking, and facing him the way you just did right after that dream you had wasn’t a big help either. God, this is like torture. You chug a good bit of the water, finishing about half of the bottle maybe a little too fast, but sleep really dried your mouth out more than you thought. After you’re done you put it down on your nightstand and get up again, about to prepare yourself for your shower when you glance over the bed.

Fuck. The blanket, you still have it, there’s no way he didn’t realize right? Unless maybe he just got back recently, but what are you going to do now? Try to sneak it out there or something, that probably won’t work, he’s on the couch where it needs to be right now! You sigh, rubbing your temples lightly, why couldn’t you have just remembered to put it back. Then you wouldn’t have been so warm wrapped up in it all night, you probably would have slept better, and you wouldn’t be stuck in this situation now. Why is past-you working so hard to make today difficult? You fold up the blanket into a nice square and decide to deal with it later, it’s shower time right now. You get undressed quickly, leaving the used clothes on the edge of your bed out of laziness, and go over to your bathroom. Just a fast shower today, not gonna bother with taking too long to decide on a playlist or waiting around, you get the water running so it can start to warm up while you brush your teeth and prepare to get inside. It’s not long before it’s warm enough to be getting the bathroom a little steamy so you step in and get to work with your shampoo first.

Showering is usually a relaxing time for you, but it’s hard for now to be like that because you’re just stuck thinking about him and the way he looked at you out there. It’s almost annoying, you feel like you’re fourteen again and you have a crush on a classmate or something, you huff lightly as you comb some conditioner through the bottom of your hair. Although maybe Vic really was on to something because he sure did _ look  _ interested with the way he stared at you, but maybe the fact that you were barely dressed helped with that. Based on some of your earlier conversations with him he does just seem to be a horny bastard in general, so maybe you shouldn’t take it personally, but it’s hard to be sure. Because he sort of stopped acting like that after a while, for whatever reason. For a guy that apparently has hair like a mood ring or something it was still pretty hard to figure out what was going on with him, or maybe you’re just terrible at reading people.

You get done with your shower after a little longer and step out, careful to walk only on the mat next to the tub so you don’t get the whole bathroom floor soaked. You slip your robe on and make your way over to the rack with several towels on it on the far wall, using the closest one to pat your face dry and then get some of the excess water out of your hair gently so it won’t be dripping everywhere once you leave the bathroom. You take the towel with you into your room then, wishing the air didn’t feel so cold even despite wearing a robe. You start to towel your hair off more earnestly as you stand nearby your dresser, just staring forward absent-mindedly. Suddenly as you’re eyeing your own bed you get a great idea.

“Laundry!” You exclaim out loud, turning and tossing the damp towel into your too full laundry basket behind the bathroom door.

That’s perfect, you can use that to hide the blanket issue, and also you need to get it done anyway so it’s not like it’ll be suspicious or something. You grin as you collect your clothes from before the shower and the blanket off the bed and stuff them down into your basket as best as you can. Once everything is inside and with the blanket slightly concealed, you quickly get dressed in pajamas that show much less of your skin than before so you can leave your room without any problem. You toe on a pair of slippers as well because the tiled floor in your small laundry room is really cold with nothing on your feet, then leave your bedroom going straight to the washer. You go in through the door right near your room to see that the light is already on inside, but you don’t remember leaving it on at any point so that’s strange. You close the door behind you and crouch down, getting to work with throwing everything into the washer. You have too much to fit in one load so you leave the rest of it in the basket and get the wash going after adding detergent. With that done you stand up and look around the small room lined with cleaning supplies.

“I should actually clean up today, I haven’t been productive at all ever since getting less time at the office. I should take advantage before we reopen soon, I’ll have much more time while I work from home for the next few days. Plus it’s actually the perfect time for spring cleaning!” You think to yourself excitedly, grabbing the vacuum that’s leaned against the wall to your right and leaving the laundry room.

You set the vacuum up in the living room before retreating to your bedroom once more to grab a tie off your dresser to put your damp hair up out of your face. You come back out and see that Beetlejuice is standing off to the side of the couch and was watching you go back and forth the past several times.

“I have a sudden passion!” You announce then, plugging the vacuum into the wall.

He quirks an eyebrow at you, “Oh? Sounds kinda--”

You cut him off, “For cleaning!” You say happily.

He deflates, “That’s the _ least _ sexy way you could have ended that sentence.”

You laugh before he continues, “Why clean? It’s perfectly fine around here, there’s no need.” He asks.

You look around, to him it must seem clean but you see all the little things. Like the small leaves and petals tracked in from outside thanks to it being spring, the clutter, and the dust collected on nearly every surface. You walk around a bit and peer in through the archway to the kitchen, realizing just how much stuff was used but left unwashed.

You turn back to him then, “It’s not fine, it’s really messy, and before I have to start working again I want to get some stuff done! I know I won’t have as much time once I have to go to the office again. Plus look at the sink, there are so many dishes.” You say easily, walking back over to stand where he is.

He looks away, “Well, would you look at the time--”

You put a hand on his shoulder, “Nope, you are not getting out of this! You live, er.. reside? Here, so you have to help too.” You say sternly, eyeing him.

He frowns, then brightens again instantly a moment later, “What if..!”

He turns around and points at the ground with a small grunt, the floorboards open up and a single beetle-clone starts rising out, jumping up and landing on your floor as the gap closes beneath them.

He turns back to you, “They help you instead!”

You glance over at the clone in question, who walks up to stand next to the original Beetlejuice, “Well sure, but you still have to do something too.” You say in return.

He frowns again, “What no, why! They’ll do all of it for me, it’ll be the same thing.”

You cross your arms, “They aren’t you, so it’s not the same as you doing it.”

He puts an arm around the clone, who just grins, “You kiddin’? We are the same ghoul, look at this, spitting image.” He says confidently, motioning with his hand between his face and the clone’s.

The clone copies the hand movement and does it as well, snickering at the same time.

You squint and look between the two, then you smile and take a step closer, “Well  _ actually _ , they have a smaller nose than you, and thicker eyebrows, and a sharper jawline, and--”

He huffs, letting go of the clone’s shoulders, “Okay so not _ identical _ , but come on, what difference does it make. They’ll do whatever you need!”

You step back, “Okay, how then?”

He smiles, “All clones are very open to suggestion, this one included, watch!”

He taps them on the shoulder then, causing them to turn and face him, then he does a little dance which the clone promptly replicates. You snicker quietly because it is rather silly looking, then he makes a motion with his hand that means ‘follow me’ and walks over to the couch, picking up a cushion and throwing it off to the side. The clone follows suit, walks up to the couch and tosses a cushion onto the floor in a similar fashion.

You frown, “That’s the opposite of cleaning. You’re both just throwing stuff.”

Beetlejuice comes back around to where you are and the clone follows too, “Noo, we are just moving the cushions so all the crumbs can be cleaned out!” He says easily, grinning at you.

You roll your eyes and turn to the clone yourself, doing the same motion you saw the ghost do and the clone’s eyes follow your hand to pay attention to you instead. You step to the left and watch the clone do the same, then you pause and jump into the air, they follow in unison with you. You stop and tap your chin with your finger, then stick your tongue out at them, they return the favor and cackle, clearly delighted.

You turn to the actual Beetlejuice now and watch as the clone turns with you, “Why am I able to do it too? How does this work?” You ask.

He just shrugs, “Well they are a copy themselves, so they like to copy others, it’s not much more complicated than that. I can just set ‘em loose on your house if you want?”

“No no.. I think I prefer it if they’re following me, I have no idea what sort of mayhem a second you would get up to if left to their own devices.” You respond, crossing your arms.

He grins, “The same mayhem I would, probably!”

‘Soo… trashing the place?” You ask, raising an eyebrow at him.

He laughs, “That’s a safe bet.”

You roll your eyes, then turn back to the clone who is still watching you expectantly, “So can you.. Wipe things up, clean, whatever?” You ask them curiously.

They just respond by nodding enthusiastically, which prompts to you to turn back to him with a smirk, “See, they’re nothing like you, they are actually willing to do some cleaning around here.” You point out.

“I think the key difference here is that they are just more eager to please than I am.” He says flatly.

“Oh? Well, that’s interesting.. Maybe I’ve found a  _ new _ favorite then.” You play, offering a shrug and turning to walk off towards the kitchen.

He opens his mouth to say something but closes it right after, only getting a short sound of irritation out instead. 

You motion for the clone to follow you as you go by him on your way to the kitchen, “Alright bud, you can help me with the dishes then!” You say to them, who is almost skipping next to you as you walk, full of boundless energy.

_ New favorite implies that her old favorite is.. me. That’s gotta be good right? Also she’s completely joking. Has to be. A clone couldn’t replace me, not in a million years. All they do is what they’re told...mostly. They don’t have nearly enough spunk or menace to be a proper substitute.  _

Just as you get through the archway you stop and call over your shoulder, “Oh and Beetlejuice!” 

The clone beside you gasps loudly and puts both their hands on their face in surprise, which makes you laugh lightly, “Could you please vacuum out there while I do this? You won’t even have to touch any water and I would really appreciate it!” You finish before heading to the sink, hearing the man grumble to himself from the next room.

_ Ughh fine, if you want to clean so bad I guess I’ll do it, but only in a half-assed kind of way. You’re lucky I like you so much lady! _

You get to the sink and see the large stack of unwashed plates and bowls waiting for you, you frown at them as you move a few of the top ones over to get a better look at how many there are underneath. It’s much more than you figured, but that does make sense since most meals have been for two lately, you glance behind you to see that the clone got distracted at some point and has pushed a chair out of their way so they can peer intently out of the window. You walk over and tap them, they turn around and you motion for them to follow you back to the sink. Once there you run the water and wet a sponge, pumping some dish soap onto it and handing it to the clone.

You turn to them now and hold up a plate, “Can you just do little circular motions with that sponge and wash all of these?” You ask.

They nod happily, “Sure! That’s easy!”

You blink at them, not exactly expecting that they could talk for some reason, but then again there really is no reason clones wouldn’t be able to. You guess it’s just surprising because until now you’ve only ever heard the clones laugh and cheer, not say any full sentences. You shake that off and smile at them, watching them scrub the plate you handed over well enough. You move out of the way and let them slide in to be right in front of the sink now, putting the cleaned and rinsed plate off to the side and picking up another one.

“That’s perfect, thanks so much!” You say, patting them on the back and then stepping away.

The clone’s hair brightens some at that and you smile, turning away to head to the pantry, “If you need help just let me know, I’ll be in here!” You say from behind the now open pantry door.

You step inside the small room and click the dim hanging light on above your head, not bothering to close the door behind you because there’s barely enough standing room in here as it is. You start to pick up different food items to check their expiration dates, you have a bad habit of buying stuff and not using all of it, so you know there are some old things in here that need to be thrown out. You find a mostly empty bag of brown sugar that’s a year past it’s date and looks terrible and crumbley inside so you put it in a bag to be moved to the thrash later, doing the same to a box of pasta that has less than a serving left inside and was sporting a spider web on the cardboard flap of the box.

A good while passes as you clean, “Damn, when was the last time I went through this stuff..?” You mumble to yourself, tossing another expired thing in the nearly full bag on top of the rest.

You hear some shuffling behind you and stand up from the lower shelf you were digging around in, turning around to see Beetlejuice upside down and peeking into the pantry from up above, floating half in the ceiling. 

You look up at him, “Yes? Are you done out there?”

He shifts and floats down further, “Uhh.. maybe.” He says suspiciously. 

The corner of your mouth tugs up, “What, did you just miss me already?” You joke.

Surprisingly your teasing doesn’t open up any banter like you were expecting since he doesn’t respond, so you take a step closer and duck under where he is floating in the doorway then wait on the other side in the kitchen. He turns around then but doesn’t come down, so you tug on his tie that is hanging loosely next to his head thanks to gravity, he bobs up and down with the motion. You smile and pull him along by the end of his tie, as if he was balloon, you take him over to the sink with you to check on how the clone is doing, only to find that the clone has washed all the dishes and is just scrubbing the last plate over and over because there are none left.

You laugh, “You could’ve just stopped you know, this one is done.” You say to them, letting go of the tie and taking the plate to rinse it off, then turning the water off so they don’t waste anymore.

Beetlejuice comes back down onto the floor then, stands upright and straightens himself out, then snaps in order to send the clone away. You jump a little at the sudden puff of smoke next to you where the clone used to be.

“Hey! I didn’t even get to thank them!” You turn around and say, furrowing your brows at him.

He shrugs, “That’s fine, they’ll be okay.”

You go to reply but he keeps talking, “Anyway, I heard this loud beeping?”

You make a puzzled sound and look down at the floor, thinking for a few long moments, “...Oh! It’s the laundry!” You declare, going past him then and heading over there to transfer the wash into the dryer.

He follows behind you as you do and hovers in the doorway when you crouch down to put the wet clothes and blanket into the dryer and set it to go on medium.

“Oh,  _ there’s _ my blanket. I was.. Looking for it.” He says from behind you in an odd voice.

You bristle at what sounds like a suspicious tone, but stand up then and try to look normal, “Yeah I just.. wanted to wash it! Sorry I took it without asking, but you were gone so I figured I would throw it in since I was washing everything else.” You get out, but he doesn’t meet your eyes as you talk.

You go past him then and leave the laundry room door open, looking to inspect whether he actually vacuumed or not. You look over the rug and the area in front of the door, you see some debris from outside still but it does look somewhat cleaner.

“Say babe, was it cold out yesterday? It’s hard for me to tell anymore.” He says from behind you, walking up to where you’re looking at the rug.

You turn to him, looking up in thought, “Uh.. no, not that I can remember? It was pretty normal, maybe a little warm even. Why?” You reply.

He squints at you slightly, “No reason, just curious.” He says back, his face returning to normal right after.

_ So it wasn’t cold, but she took it anyway, and I know the blanket wasn’t in the laundry this whole time.. So she’s lying. But why, what’s your aim here girly? _

That was a strange question, but no matter, you need to finish where he left off and vacuum the rest of these petals up before they start sticking to your floor permanently. You walk over to where the vacuum is in the middle of the room and when it doesn’t turn on, you follow the cord back to where you had set it up and see that the end of it is just laying on the ground not plugged into the outlet. Suddenly the thing starts up loudly beside you and begins going over the rug in slightly jagged back and forth motions, completely on its own. You look up to see Beetlejuice is floating in midair, sitting cross legged with his head propped up on his hand while the other hand is lazily pointing a finger at the vacuum and waving it side to side.

“What.. you’re doing that without electricity?” You ask, stepping to the side to get out of the way of the power cord that's being dragged around behind the independently moving vacuum.

“Well yeah, ghostly magics, you know.” He says then, wiggling his fingers at you for emphasis.

You walk up to stand beside him and watch as the vacuum moves around the rug and then to the front door, picking up most of the stuff on the ground as it goes. He’s up above you but his lap is about at your eye level so you can clearly see his hands and the fact that he’s just dragging it carelessly across the floor with his movements, not being very deliberate at all.

“You should slow it down some, if the front of the vacuum bumps into stuff and skips off the ground it won’t pick everything up.” You say over the noise, eyeing his hand motions.

He slows down a bit as he moves the vacuum in a more regular pattern, you look up at his face and he seems to be concentrating more, as if being more careful was making controlling the appliance harder. You lean forward a bit as you’re looking at him, noticing how his tongue is peeking out a bit at the corner of his mouth as he concentrates, and the way his eyebrows are pushed together. It’s really interesting to see, he looks as if he’s handling some tiny piece of a puzzle that has to be placed really delicately in order to fit, but in reality he’s just manipulating a vacuum that’s a couple feet away. You hear the loud sound of it die down and he looks back to you then from above, you feel a little embarrassed to be caught staring.

“Impressed with my amazing vacuuming skills huh?” He asks, smiling smugly and coming down to stand on the floor.

“Not really, you did an okay enough job, for someone who doesn’t clean anything ever…” You trail off, softening the harsh comment slightly with your next line, “But your powers are just really..  _ cool _ .”

He smirks at you, “See I knew it, you  _ are _ impressed!”   
  


“Well I mean, yeah! It seems like you can just do anything you want, all the time, it’s wild.” You explain honestly.

“That’s fair. I can’t do everything, but I do have a pretty free range. At least, now I do again, cause’ of you!” He smiles warmly at you.

You nod and smile bashfully, happy to feel appreciated, but he cuts you off right as you’re about to keep talking, “Which reminds me! You said we are supposed to be celebrating, and the weekend is nearly over! So now is no time for cleaning. Plus, look what I got!”

He gestures his hand out to the side of him in the vague direction of the kitchen and then suddenly he is holding a cardboard 12 pack of cans. You can only assume it’s some brand of beer you’ve never heard of, based on the packaging, which makes sense, but where did he get that?

“Where did you..?” You start to ask, but then stop and start again, “Wait let me guess.. You stole them.”

He grins, “You know me so well babes!”

You roll your eyes at him with a smirk and then he keeps talking, “I just figured since you brought up some celebratory drinking before, that I would get some last night while I was..  _ out _ . Why have you buying everything all the time when I can just take stuff for free!”

You take a step closer to him, “Yeah, I guess that is pretty nice of you.. Since you can’t give me money for things anyway, you can just take them instead. Hopefully it was from a big store that won’t miss it, not a small local store right?”

He glances away, “Yeahhh, completely.”

You squint at him, “You can go long distances super quick so don’t just take stuff from the nearest store. Get those big box places, they make so much money in a year they won’t be hurting at all if you take from them.”

“Sure sure, will do... Next time.” He says dismissively, adding the last line quieter than the first.

You take the box from him and bring it with you into the kitchen, leaving it on a counter while you check in the fridge. He comes in moments later, standing nearby and eyeing you as you pull stuff out.

“What’re you doin’?” He asks from behind you then.

“Trying to make room in here to put these away, and getting stuff out to make a sandwich. I haven’t even had lunch yet!” You explain, crouched down and shuffling items around on the bottom shelf of your fridge. 

“Oh they were already in there before, they can fit easy. But I meant for us to like.. Drink them now.” He clarifies, coming up to where you are.

“Wait, how did you fit them in here? There’s no room… also I haven’t even eaten anything Bug, I’m not just going to start day drinking.” You say, standing up then and looking at the spot that you cleared for the package.

“Oh, like this.” He says easily, then the box of beer appears in the fridge haphazardly, sideways and on top of several other things.

“Ah! You’re going to crush the stuff I just moved!” You yelp, reaching down and taking it out to move to the spot you made for it.

He snickers next to you, and you glare at him as you come back up with the lettuce you rescued from being flattened. Then you reach in and grab the other things you need for a sandwich and get to work making one for yourself. You’re at the counter getting your food ready while he uses the other counter near you as a seat.

“Also I see no reason why we can’t just drink them with your lunch, they’re already cold, and--” He starts.

“And time is a social construct so we should just be able to do things whenever we want, I know.” You finish for him, not looking up from the food you’re nearly done preparing.

“Have I really said it that many times?” He mumbles.

You laugh, “Not that many, but enough.”

You finish making your sandwich and take it with you back to the living room, Beetlejuice is on the couch waiting for you as you walk in, despite being back behind you last you checked. Even though he’s now been in your house for quite a bit it still startles you a little when he uses a random power out of nowhere, you figure you’ll definitely get used to it soon enough though. You plop down on the couch and take a bite into your food as he switches on The Price is Right and you nod in approval so he sets the remote down.

You two watch the show while you eat, he makes jokes at the expense of the contestants that are playing the game at the worst possible times on purpose, in order to make you laugh while you’re trying to chew. You end up coughing and having a hard time because of it, hitting him on the arm lightly as he makes fun of you. It’s a good time though even despite him messing with you, and eventually the episode that’s playing finishes and you are done with your sandwich around the same time. You are about to suggest watching something else when a loud beeping goes off behind you.

“Oh the dryer, let me get that.” You say, standing quickly to go make the sound stop.

He doesn’t follow after you surprisingly, so you just open up the dryer and start to pull things out, the clothes still hot to the touch. You’re filling another empty bin with your now clean and dry clothes when you get to the blanket, you carefully pull it out so it doesn’t drape all over the laundry room floor, then with it balled up in your arms you head back to the couch.

“You’re gonna love this!” You say happily as you approach him from behind, unfurling and dropping the blanket on top of him from the other side of the couch and then retreating to finish the last bit of laundry.

At first all you hear is a short “Ah!” sound of surprise behind you from dropping it on his head, but then it quickly turns into “OOhhhh my goddd” muffled by the fact that he’s talking from within the fabric.

You finish up switching the wash into the now free dryer and come back to the couch, closing the laundry door behind you as you do. You come back to your spot and see that he’s still completely covered in it, which you laugh at because it looks ridiculous.

“It’s good right?” You ask.

He pops his head out finally, his hair just slightly more disheveled than usual, “Yeah, how’d you get it so hot? This is really just from the dryer?” He asks then, excited.

You nod, “Yeah, I had it run on the hottest setting. Nothing of mine in there is at risk of shrinking so I thought it would be good.”

“Can I just.. Live in your dryer.” He says abruptly.

You snort, “No please don’t, I still need to use it.”

“Damn..” He mutters, trailing off, then he pulls the blanket up to his face again and scrunches his nose a little, “Smells like flowers now…”

“Yeah that’s my detergent.” You reply easily.

There is a good bit of silence and then you pipe up with a question, “How come you’re kind of like like.. Obsessed with warm stuff?” You ask, knowing that he’s cold from being a ghost but it just seems like there’s more to it than that.

“Well, when you’ve been cold and alone for as many years as I have you forget what this is even like, and it's  _ real _ good.” He says, sounding happy about the blanket but unphased through the whole rest of the statement.

You frown, “That sounds um..  _ Incredibly sad _ when you put it that way.”

“Oh, it was.” He says matter of factly, not really looking over at you at all since he’s still preoccupied with the blanket. 

He doesn’t say anything more, just adjusts himself to get the warm fabric wrapped all the way around him. That was suddenly really heavy and you weren’t expecting it at all, even though he just says it like simple facts it still feels kind of weird to suggest cleaning more or even just continuing conversation in general after that. You lean down a bit to get a clear look at the clock on the cable box from your spot on the couch, then you check the window and find that it looks like it’s going to be sunset not too long from now. Time really does fly, the sky is already starting to sport that little bit of telltale orange that means the sun has begun lowering down to the horizon. Fuck it, maybe he’s right, time is just a construct or whatever, especially when you sleep the morning away every chance you get. Why not enjoy yourself, and he deserves to enjoy himself too, it’s not like someone is gonna come stop you, you’re an adult after all.

“I change my mind, let’s do it, get the beer out here!” You break him out of his distracted huddling in the blanket suddenly with your announcement.

“Ayy, now we’re talkin’!” He says excitedly, making the case appear on the table in front of you in an instant.

He doesn’t make any move to leave his blanket wrapping so you lean forward and open up the tab on the side of the box so you can slide a couple cans out. You grab one for yourself and hand one to him, which he hisses as he grabs, you’re guessing the sound is from the big change between the hot blanket and the cold metal can. It’s pretty funny but you refrain from making any jokes about him right now, choosing to settle back against the couch instead and crack open your can a moment later.

“You wanna make some kind of toast, since this is a couch-based celebration and all?” He pipes up from beside you, his can now open as well.

“Oh yes yes, of course.” You say in a mock snooty voice, sitting up straight and thinking for a moment.

You smile as you think of a good phrase to say, “To.. Fucking shit up!” You say happily, holding your can of beer out to him.

“Hell yeah!” He says, tapping his can against yours after he does.

Both of you take a long swig, he holds it just a second longer than you though, then after you finish you reach forward for the remote. Once you grab it you tap it lightly against your leg in thought, taking another sip of your beer.

“Wanna watch a horror movie?” You ask then, turning to look at him as you do.

“Is that even a question doll? Throw one on.” He says easily.

You flip through the options for a bit, then settle on one that isn’t as gore-centric as the last one you watched with him. You decided that maybe those just aren’t for you after not easily being able to watch it in the first place. You click play on it then set the remote down beside you on the couch, looking back to him right after you do.

“Lights?” You say, phrasing it like a question.

A moment later they flick off, without him doing much of anything except glancing up for a second. It’s not all the way dark in here because the sun isn’t finished going down, but it’s getting there, and it’s definitely dark enough for movie time. You take another long drink of your beer, before turning your attention to the movie. It’s got a log cabin in the woods somewhere and you can already tell that the first person on screen is not going to last long.

A few minutes into the opening scene you whisper, “You think that’s a real knife?” and glance to see his face as he replies.

“Nope.. in fact how much do you wanna bet that the thing is gonna snap at the hilt when she attempts to defend herself?” He says back while smirking.

You turn back to the movie, “I’m gonna bet.. nothing, because you’re totally right and I don’t wanna lose any money to you.”

He laughs quietly, “Good call, but I would’a liked the cash.”

“What, so you can just give it right back to me since I buy dinner all the time?” You play, not quite following the dialogue on scene anymore.

He just snickers next to you, then takes a sip from his can. That reminds you about the beer you’ve just been warming in your hand for a while so you take a long drink and finish it, putting the empty can on the table and sitting back. You glance over at him in his slightly spread out position leaned against the arm of the couch, mostly covered by the blanket that you assume has lost most of its warmth by now. You reach over and place a hand on what looks like just a ruffle of the fabric but ends up being a part of his leg.

You didn’t mean to do that, but you keep it cool and ask the question you were planning on asking regardless of that slip up, “Could we share?” You say, lifting a bit of the blanket up in your hand.

He turns towards you and doesn’t quite meet your eyes before nodding his head, “Sure.. go ahead.”

You push yourself back against the cushions of the couch and bring your legs in, then lift the part of the blanket closest to you and drape it over yourself, covering most of your lap. As you move you take the opportunity to scoot just a bit closer to him, probably not enough to be noticeable, but you enjoy it either way. The movie goes on for a while, the classic ‘everything that can go wrong will happen’ plot follows, with the protagonist getting trapped and the electricity going out and everything else one might expect. While the movie plays you both move through several cans of beer between the two of you, and it isn’t long before you feel the pleasant warmth on your face that marks the beginnings of being tipsy. It’s a nice kind of feeling though, just relaxing and warm, but not so much that you can’t focus on the unfolding murder story in front of you. No, there is another reason you can’t focus and it’s that you’re hyper aware of the fact that his left arm is resting along the back of the couch right behind your head. You feel like your hair is probably brushed against it from where you’re sitting, and you keep thinking about the cliche thing people do in shows where one person does some gesture as an excuse to put their arm around the other person. Like a yawn usually, or reaching for something, or it's just played off as an accident. And it looks like someone just died on screen but here you are thinking about cuddling instead.

You blow out a big puff of air through your mouth in a low sigh and frown, frustrated with yourself and mentally blaming the alcohol for the fact that you can’t just keep your mind straight in order to watch this movie. Especially since you were the one to pick out in the first place. Suddenly you hear him clear his throat quietly beside you, and before you can even look over you feel a tap on your shoulder from his hand that is resting along the couch behind you.

You jump just slightly because you weren’t expecting him to touch you from your left side, or for him to move at all, then he points at the screen and whispers, “See that curtain swaying? The killer is gonna show up in one of those windows for sure.”

You turn your attention back to the screen and eye up the layout of the room and the windows in the scene and then sure enough a couple seconds later, the killer does pop up in the window he pointed at to scare the last person left alive. It’s supposed to be a big jumpscare but instead of being surprised or scared you’re giggling quietly to yourself, much to the amusement of Beetlejuice beside you, who you catch smiling as well when you look.

A few moments later, you lean in and tap him excitedly on the chest to which he only replies with a short “Hm?”, then you laugh a bit more and point at the screen whispering, “That blood is _ fake _ !”

Or rather, you try to whisper but it comes out a little too loud. He cracks up beside you, it feels like it’s mostly  _ at _ you instead of with you, but that’s fine. The beer has succeeded in making you all giggly, your friends in college did always say that you were the silly type when you drank alcohol, which is lucky for you because that definitely beats the people that black out or call their exes or whatever. 

“So you can spot all the tricks now huh? You’re not scared?” He says, and you aren’t looking at him but you can practically hear the smile in his voice.

“Yep, now that I know what to look out for, I’m too tough for these movies!” You declare confidently.

“Reallyy..” He draws out, then pauses for a while only to cough quietly into his hand and start talking again, “Say could you uh.. Grab the remote for me?” He asks then.

You take your attention away from the screen to glance over at him, he’s looking past you at first but then meets your eyes when you look and smiles brightly. That’s strange, what does he need the remote for? The movie is still going. You try to pay attention to the TV because it looks like it’s coming up to the final pivotal point in the plot, will the last guy left make it out of there or will he die. You reach over to your left where you put the remote a while ago without looking, feeling around for it as you watch the killer stalk up to the guy that’s trying to get gas into the car to escape. You brush past something that is definitely not the hard plastic texture of a remote that you’re looking for, but rather you place your hand down on the cushion beside you only to feel a small poke of something fuzzy touching your skin. You look over and there beside you, and beside the remote that you couldn’t quite reach, is a relatively small brown looking tarantula that’s walking around near your hand. At the exact moment that you see it, the guy in the movie is stabbed and there is a loud scream from the speakers in front of you. You yelp loudly yourself, the combination of fear and surprise at everything happening at the same time, and in your panic you also jolt backwards, watching it crawl closer to you.

Meanwhile, Beetlejuice is laughing up a storm beside you as you get scared, to which you can only frown knowing he’s the one who made it appear for sure.

“You! You’re.. You’re a jerk!” You yell at him, tensing up and watching it come closer but not knowing what to do other than freeze in place.

His laughter at your expense dies down some then, and he leans in a bit closer to reach over you, “Heyy, she’s not so bad. I’m just trying to keep you on your toes!”

He holds his hand out over your lap and you watch as the tarantula crawls across you to get onto his palm easily, you scrunch back farther against him and the couch behind you as it crawls over you. Then he lifts it over to himself so it’s not on you anymore and holds it up a bit to look at.

“She?!” You ask, it’s kind of a question but also kind of a yell.

“Yeah, she’s a Chilean rose tarantula. They’re common as pets because they are so docile and easy to care for.” He explains easily, gently touching her along the top of her body.

She doesn’t react much, just slowly walks forward on his hand, you untense a little bit at what he has to say though, “So.. she’s, um.. Nice?” You say hesitantly.

“Yeah she wouldn’t really hurt anybody. She can, but I think she’d probably run away before attacking anyone.” He says, smiling at her and then making her disappear from his hand.

You sigh in relief now that the tarantula is gone, even if she is nice and docile like he says, you were still uncomfortable watching her walk around and be near you in general. And just because she isn’t dangerous doesn’t mean he didn’t try to scare you on purpose, so you’re still upset!

You huff, “I know you did on that purpose! You’re so mean!” You say, closing your eyes and crossing your arms.

He chuckles, “Hey listen, you said you weren’t scared anymore from the movie so I had to fix that, can you blame me?”

“Yes, and I am. I blame you.” You state easily.

“Well I scared you with probably the  _ nicest _ bug that I could, so isn’t that saying something?” He asks, his arm weighing against you over your shoulders as he shifts beside you. 

In your scramble to get away from the tarantula you also pushed yourself all the way over to the right of the couch to be as far back from where she was crawling as you could, and in turn, you’re also pressed right up against his side now. Much closer than when you started the movie and you didn’t really process until this moment that his arm is also draped over you, just like you had been thinking about before. You open your eyes then to see that the final scene has faded out while you weren’t looking and the TV is now sitting on the select screen where you played the movie from in first place. The screen has a dark theme right now, so that mixed with all the lights being off and it being night outside makes the living room barely lit, you glance up at him from your spot nestled at his side to gauge his expression or even his hair but from this angle you can’t see very well so all you can gather is that he isn’t looking down at you right now. 

“So is this the  _ fake _ accident type of putting your arm around someone that I was thinking up earlier, or is this a real accident cause I knocked into him while panicking? And what does he mean..” You think to yourself, sitting silently for a while. 

“Um… What’s it saying?” You finally ask in a quiet tone, feeling a bit nervous at how you’ve both ended up, and curious about what he means.

He pauses for a while, “Well I’m going easy on you, duh. So if anything babe, you should thank me!”

You sigh, “You’re the worst.” You say with a short gentle laugh, sinking down into the couch again.

You don’t even know why you were expecting another answer, why it made you feel tense waiting for him to say something. Of course he’d make some kind of light-hearted jab like that, it’s just like him. You smile to yourself in the dark, not moving to do anything with the TV or leave his side, just sitting and leaning back comfortably. Maybe he’s holding on to you by accident, or maybe it’s on purpose, but right now you feel perfectly content to just stay this way and not question it. The silence stretches on for some time, enough time to make you feel just a bit uneasy before he shifts beside you, changing his position slightly to try to get a look at your face. You catch him doing so and meet him halfway, angling up to look at him, and even in the dim lighting of the living room you catch him wide-eyed and looking slightly surprised.

“Oh.. you’re awake. I thought you might have fallen asleep.” He says quietly, sitting back again.

You just hum lightly in response, turning ahead again and blinking slowly as you look at nothing in particular. Sleep does sound pretty good right now, you’re comfortable, your head is still swimming pleasantly from the beers you drank before, which does make you more tired. But something else is tugging on you, you feel like you should stay awake longer, because the sooner you sleep the sooner this time will be over. So instead you keep talking, just starting with the first thing on your mind.

“Isn’t it crazy.. How none of this stuff would have happened, none of it... If you just happened to like, pop up in a different graveyard. Or decide to haunt some other funeral?” You say slowly.

You wait a bit and when he doesn’t say anything you keep going, “My first ever funeral too. My first real encounter with death, something that.. _ impactful _ . At least it seemed like that at the time, but now my life is just.. Revolving around death, I guess. Or the supernatural, at least.” You keep going, it’s making sense in your head, you just hope it’s making sense out loud too.

“Mhm.. Is that.. a bad thing?” He finally says, questioning you.

You shake your head, “No.. No, I don’t think so... It’s just like, what are the  _ odds _ , you know?” You explain with a quiet laugh.

“Yeah... Fate doesn’t exist but, this  _ is _ a pretty fuckin’ awesome thing we stumbled into here babes.” He responds, leaning into your side just a bit.

You shift away only a little to smile brightly up at him, hoping he can see you well enough in the darkness, “Yep. Lucky us!” You say happily.

There is another lull in conversation as a nice silence settles over the both of you again. It feels good, a little better than the last one that’s for sure. You shift back to be right against him again, not really caring if that makes you obvious or not, maybe it’s the beer talking but right now you don’t even care if he knows you’re into him, you just enjoy the closeness. A few minutes go by that seem to take longer than regular minutes, then you lean your head back against his arm, looking up at the ceiling and blowing out a long puff of air as you think.

“You know… sometimes I’m still kind of scared. You can do so much, all the time, whatever you want to do, whenever you want to do it, you can just.. You can do anything! I know you said you aren’t limitless, but god, to me.. What’s the difference?” You try to explain, maybe not being as clear as you like right now, but you’re trying your best.

You feel him nod next to you, and you keep going, “Like I dunno, sometimes I stop and think how crazy this is, how crazy I am? I’m living with a demon.. you’re a demon! And I just.. This doesn’t always feel like reality I guess.” You pause for a beat, then sigh, “Sometimes I worry that you’re just going to decide to do something terrible, because I can’t  _ really _ stop you, ya know? You could just.. You could just murder me or something on whim, if you wanted to.” You finally finish.

At some point during that long rant, you did scoot away from him and out of his hold, just so you can look at him more directly, so he finally makes eye contact with you now, “Do you regret it then?” He asks seriously.

You look at him intently, “Regret what?” You ask in turn, furrowing your brows at him.

He looks away for a second, then comes back, “Summoning me?”

You look down at the couch cushions beneath you, “No... I don’t regret it at all. I was hesitant yeah, and I was definitely scared, but..” You pause a while, then look back up and meet his eyes, “But I made a good choice.”

He smiles really warmly at you then, and you don’t know if you’ve ever seen him look that tender. You smile at him too, then lean back just a bit and prop your hand up behind you for support as you sit. Your hand hits the remote that’s lying there and the screen of the TV jumps to a different menu that has a white background, so suddenly the couch and the room is illuminated quite a bit more. In the new light of the room you can see him better, and his hair, which is sporting that light pink color you remember seeing all those times. You don’t bother asking, it’s not important right now anyway.

“Well.. don’t you worry about nothing Doll. I’m definitely not going to murder my best friend, there are plenty of other fucks out there who  _ actually _ deserve it.” He says reassuringly.

You can’t help but feel sad, maybe disappointed at what he says. Not the sentiment of the statement at all, but that fact that he called you that. It’s nice, but after the other day, and after tonight, it’s not really what you want, and you’re sure of that now.

“Right… my  _ best friend _ .” You say hesitantly, maybe not hiding how you feel about it too well because he seems to deflate at your words.

He looks away, scratching the back of his neck with his hand, “Shit.. Uh, sorry. I guess I probably haven’t earned a step up from  _ regular  _ friends yet.” He says, frowning.

You look up at him and you can see the little bits of purple and yellow in his hair, damn it, that’s not what you meant, “No! Um.. I..” You start.

He looks back at you then, and gives you a confused face, so you keep going, “It’s not that at all, I just…”

You take a deep breath. You might be doing this, are you doing this? You feel like you should, you want to. You’re going to, now is the time!

“Listen, it’s the...  _ friend  _ part in particular.. I..” You try to explain.

“...Oh.” He says suddenly, looking down at the couch.

_ I knew it. _

You keep going, “Yeah.. I wanted to tell you..” 

He cuts in again before you can keep talking, “So  _ that’s _ what this is?”

You look up at him, but his hair looks like it’s red now, only a little bit, but in the newly brightened light of the TV you can definitely tell that it’s red. You make eye contact again and furrow your eyebrows at him, confused, as he just glares back at you.

“.. What? What do you mean? Why--” You try to keep going, but he frowns and cuts you off once more.

“I see how it is. I did what you wanted, so now it’s over. You strung me along for a bunch of extra days, out of pity or whatever... but  _ now _ you don’t need any help so why keep me around, right?” He says, not looking at you anymore.

You reach a hand out to put on his knee, you try to say something, but Beetlejuice stands up from the couch abruptly, the lights flickering a few times before coming all the way on, “Just gonna send me back like none of this mattered!” He says angrily, directed into the air since he still isn’t facing you.

“Wha-- NO!” You yell, jumping up as well and walking after him as he moves away from the couch, “No that’s not what I’m saying at all!”

His hair is shifting pretty wildly between reds and purples from what you can see, he still won’t look at you even as you approach him from behind and try to get his attention so he will listen to you.

“Oh yeah, HA, sure! I’m  _ positive  _ you can just come up with some perfectly sound reasoning on why you want me out too, make it seem like it’s noooo big deal, right?” He snaps, crossing his arms and stopping in his tracks around the middle of your living room.

You start to walk around to the other side of him, so you can talk to him face to face at least, “Wait, just, settle down, listen to me--”

He spins around quickly to face you, “Oh, SHUT UP. I don’t want to hear it.” He spits, yelling loudly right up next to you.

You bristle and wince slightly as he keeps going, “I’m unwanted like usual, I get it, it’s not a hard fuckin’ concept!”

He looks like he’s starting to storm off again, either to just leave completely or to tear through your house or something, but either way you swallow whatever fear you have and decide that if he’s not going to listen to you then you’ll just start yelling too, until he does. You make a low noise of frustration in your throat and go after him with a quick shout of “HEY!”, going at a fast pace past the side of him and turning around quickly so you’re finally facing him head on. He looks hurt more than anything, which softens your anger just a bit.

“STOP!” You yell, balling up your fists and staring him down now that he’s in front of you.

He averts his eyes and starts to turn around again, so you step forward and grab him roughly by the arm and pull him back your way. He looks startled, stops moving again and grunts, then after a moment he goes intangible so you can see him but your hand goes right through him. Your grip on him fades to nothing as your hand is just hovering in the air now, so you retract it and ball up your fists again, glaring up at him out of frustration, feeling the prickle of tears hit the corners of your eyes from getting so worked up.

“Be--” You stop yourself. Remembering to breathe, trying to calm down, “Lawrence. Please. You’re not listening to me at all!” You try again, feeling like you could start crying any second but the frustration is keeping you from breaking.

He frowns deeply and still doesn’t meet your eyes, his hair turning completely purple now, the last bits of red fading out after a second or two. He sighs, coming back to being solid again and standing still, just looking down and waiting.

“Okay. What.” He finally says, it’s a quiet tone and it sounds broken.

You’re just staring ahead at him after you finish talking, and it takes a moment to register but once he becomes tangible again and starts talking, softer this time, you just shake your head, letting a couple tears slip out and then go up to him as quickly as you can. You jump at him and bring him into a quick hug that he hesitates to reciprocate at all, after a few long moments he lets his arms rest around your back but he doesn’t hold on much at all. You on the other hand, squeeze the middle of him with all your tired and frustrated strength.

“I  _ don’t _ want you to leave!” You insist, it’s muffled into his chest a bit but it still comes out clear enough.

You feel him grunt a little above you and you step back to look at him, your eyes pleading. He glances at you but doesn’t hold it, looking instead at the floor to your right, scrunching up his face as he does, either in confusion or maybe anger again, it’s hard to tell.

You keep trying, “I mean it.. I really mean it! You just misunderstood me, I didn’t even finish you know..” You trail off, watching him.

He’s looking off to the side still, his face shifts as you talk, so he’s obviously listening, but he still just looks so sad. You watch him intently to see if he’s going to respond to you, to see if he’s actually understanding you now. 

_ What is she even trying to say? I don’t get it, she.. She wants me gone, she has to, what else would that be about? All the stuff she said.. _

You watch his eyebrows come together, thinking hard, and staring confused right past your face. Still refusing to look at you. You take a glance up at his hair and it hasn’t come back from being deeply purple, which you know means he’s very upset right now. But you weren’t trying to say you didn’t want to be his friend, his best friend even, you weren’t trying to tell him you didn’t want him here anymore. It’s the opposite! And based on his expressions and his hair you can tell that he still isn’t getting that, maybe it’s the damn alcohol in you that made this confusing and made it fall apart in the first place, but you still can do better than this. You can try to fix it, you can show him what you mean.

You’re still standing right up next to him from having hugged him just minutes before, you reach up and put both of your hands on his shoulders, “Could you.. look at me? Please?” You ask softly, all the anger and frustration from before leaving your voice.

He sighs, closing his eyes and you feel him sag slightly under your hands like he’s tired. A couple of long seconds pass and he opens his eyes again, turning to look at you finally, a frown still on his lips and he’s staring ahead at you like he doesn’t even know what to think or what to expect here. You can’t understand why he was so dead set on this idea of you making him leave, other than maybe wording things poorly, have you given him any other reason to think you don’t want him here? It doesn’t feel like you have, but at this point it’s too late, it’s already happened and he is already upset. Right now you just need to show him what you actually mean, and you can’t think of an easier way of doing this. You scan your eyes over his face for a moment and then ready yourself, now is the time to be bold.

You lean forward a bit, and get up on your toes to reach him since he’s just a bit taller than you, then you try to kiss him. The emphasis is on  _ try _ here because unfortunately thanks to those damn beers you’re not exactly steady so you end up landing right to the side of his mouth instead of directly on it. You’re kissing the corner of his mouth where a bit of stubble lies and you’re leaned up against him so when you make contact you can feel him jolt underneath you in surprise. It doesn’t last long before you lean back in order to try again, but then before you get a chance he puts his hands on your shoulders in turn and lowers you down to the ground to be flat on your feet, so you’re back to being shorter than him again. You look up at him confused and see that he’s still frowning just not as much, his hair is still mostly purple, but there is a flash of pink in it now too, which does make you hopeful for a couple seconds.

_ No. No .. That.. this isn’t real. _

He averts his eyes then he starts talking, “Don’t play with me babes.” He says it gently, he sounds sad but it’s different now.

You furrow your eyebrows at him, “I’m  _ not _ playing! I’m serious!” You say, without raising your voice too much but the anger does bubble up again at him dismissing you.

He glances back for just a second, “You…” But then he looks pained, he doesn’t hold eye contact and sighs, pausing for a while before continuing, “Y/N, you are drunk. And I am.. I..”

“I need to go.” he finishes.

Your eyes go wide, he called you by your actual name. He never does that. You can’t even remember the last time. He always calls you something inappropriate, or funny, or sweet. You look up at him again and see that the pink is all the way gone, back to the purple you hated seeing at this point. He goes to take a step back from you but you follow him.

“Please!” You say, because you can’t think of anything else to say.

You scrunch your eyes closed and grab onto his arm again, stepping closer to him knowing that he can’t actually go without taking you with him as long as you’re holding on still. There’s a long beat of silence, you half expect to feel him go intangible in your grasp again, just like he did before, but he doesn’t. You feel and hear him sigh in front of you so you open your eyes again and look up.

He still looks just so sad and conflicted, you can’t help it, you feel a couple tears fall down your face as you stare at him, “Don’t go..” You try, your voice cracking a bit as you say it.

He looks down at you then and you can see his face shift like he’s hit with a pang of guilt. He holds eye contact with you for what is probably the longest time in the past half hour or however long it’s been. He slowly scans your face as you stare up at him, hopeful that he’ll see whatever it is he needs to see that will convince him not to leave. A moment passes and he blinks, then looks away. Your face falls and you’re about to try to say something to get him to listen to you and believe you here, but then he pulls you into a sudden and very gentle hug.

He squeezes lightly and talks into the top of your head, “...I  _ will _ come back, okay? When you’re thinking clear again.”

Then he lets go about as quickly as he pulled you in, steps back and gives you one last long look directly in your eyes, “Goodnight..”

Then he vanishes, he’s gone right in front of you before you can even say anything in return. You still feel the bit of chill on your arms from where he wrapped around you, but he’s gone. You blink slowly, just staring ahead. Then before you even realize it’s happening you’re fully crying, it’s gentle and quiet, you’re not sobbing, just sad and empty and confused. You look around the room as the tears blur your vision slightly, you walk up to the couch, plopping down onto it and pulling out a small thing of tissues from the drawer closest to you. You wipe at your eyes for several minutes, willing the tears to stop.

“Come on, fuckin’  _ stupid _ eyes. Leave me alone, stop it.” You grumble angrily, hoping that if you can be angry you won’t be sad anymore.

It doesn’t work of course, but eventually the tears do slow down to a stop soon enough, but now you’re just sitting here by yourself feeling terrible. You take in your surroundings finally now that you’re done, eyeing the package of beer on the table off to the right. You scowl and stand up, approaching it quickly.

“This is all your fault!” You yell at an inanimate object, pushing the less than half full cardboard box off the table onto the floor.

It comes down with a crash, making you jump a little at how loud it was against the hardwood floors. The remaining cans don’t burst open up luckily so there’s no mess, but a few do roll away from the box, making you frown more. You walk past, stepping over them, going across to the far wall and turning the lights off manually. Then circling back and flicking the TV off that was still on this whole time, just waiting for someone to come use it again. Now that you’re standing in your living room in complete darkness you just sigh heavily, feeling sorry for yourself and really upset in general.

You make your way over to your bedroom from memory, sliding a hand down the door to get to the door knob, opening it up and walking inside, not even bothering to close it behind you. You walk forward to your bed slowly, letting yourself fall forward onto once you get close enough. You slump down into the blanket there and groan deeply, then roll over to look up at the ceiling.

“What did I do wrong?” You say to no one, hoping that maybe the ceiling will answer back.

“I don’t get it. I made him mad.. But it was an accident! Can’t he see that?” You explain further, huffing.

You grumble then, realizing now dumb you sound talking to yourself. There’s nothing you can do about it now, he’s already gone. He said he would come back, but somehow that doesn’t even make you feel any better. You don’t even understand how tonight ended up so bad, so wrong. You never thought it would get this messed up if you tried telling him how you feel, and now you don’t even know how you can fix it. Hell, you’re not even sure what the problem is. Why wouldn’t he just believe you! Rejecting you would be one thing, but he acted as if you didn’t even mean it. He said to stop playing with him, does he really believe you would do that? You huff, sitting up then and crawling over to your spot on the right side of the bed where your nightstand is. You sit up against the headboard and then pull your blanket over you, looking out the window to your right at nothing in particular. Then you remember something important. 

“Beetlejuice?” You try, waiting a bit to see if something will happen.

It doesn’t, so you sigh deeply, closing your eyes and leaning your head back against the headboard. You remember that the way he described it was that he can hear it when someone says it, but you guess he chooses whether or not he goes to the person. Aside from someone summoning him, but he would need to be banished first you think, in order to re-summon him. And you’re not going to do that.

“I’m not going to say it three times again and banish you, Beetlejuice, if you hear this? I won’t even say it twice consecutively, if it makes you feel any better.” You say out loud, not really knowing if you’re talking to yourself or not.

You continue that for who knows how long, talking to maybe no one or maybe talking to him, you have no way to tell. You sprinkle his name in every now and then between sentences, but never consecutively, just in case he can hear it, so it won’t be taken the wrong way. You do that for a long time into the night before falling asleep at some point, you slump down into a rather uncomfortable position too as you doze off, but it doesn’t even matter. It’s not like this night could get any worse at this point.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it's sad.... Don't hate me please <333


	14. Settling

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again~ I tried to get this chapter out really speedy for you all, after leaving the last one the way I did lol  
> Enjoy! <3

There is a dull ache behind your eyes, but you refuse to open them. You know there is light out there, and noise, but instead of dealing with it you just grab a spare pillow and slam it over your face, groaning angrily. A few minutes pass and you feel like maybe you’re actually going to get any amount of extra sleep, then the sound starts up again.

“FUCK. OKAY!” You yell at the air, sitting up abruptly and grabbing your noisy phone to shut off the alarm.

It’s Monday morning, usually you would have been up an hour ago because you have to drive over to the office, but those exterminators the place doesn’t actually need haven’t done their work yet so the whole floor is still shut down. Unfortunately that doesn’t mean you have nothing to do, quite the contrary, since no one is actually ready to work from home you have to get online and be there to help all of them with their annoying questions and manage the files on the cloud so that no one accidentally ruins the well organized system. And you have to do all of that, on top of doing your own work. You hiss lightly at the sting of the sun and quickly get up, taking a long swig of water from your bottle and walking over to your curtains and closing them, the heavy black fabric blocking most of the unwanted light so you can get some relief. You spend a long moment gazing out your open bedroom door at nothing in particular, you don’t usually like to sleep with the door open, but you ended up doing that last night. You drag your feet over to the bathroom and leave the light off to look in the mirror, even in the dim lighting you can tell you look like shit.

“Oh great, love that for me.” You mutter, dragging a hand over your face and frowning.

After the rough night you had, and the terrible sleep, today was shaping up to be one of the worst work days you’ve ever had, save for when your boss disrespected you recently of course. Eventually you suck it up and get ready, washing your face off, brushing your teeth, and then spending far too long sitting on the toilet browsing your phone even though you could have gotten up minutes ago. Once back in your bedroom you don’t really bother getting fully dressed, just removing your shirt to slip a sports bra on and then picking a new shirt. You’re just going to be sitting at your desk all day, it’s not like you need to look or feel presentable, but the extra support on your chest should be nice since everyone who knows you says your posture is terrible. They are right though, you like to lean forward over your keyboard when you work at a desk, it’s bad for your back for sure but habits are hard to break.

Finally you step out into your living room, you walk just a bit slowly, looking around everywhere in your house before ending in the kitchen. It’s just like you thought, there is no one else here, it’s just you alone in your own home. You sigh gently, half of you is sad he isn’t here and the other half is kind of relieved because you feel like you’re not really ready to deal with it. You pour a quick bowl of cereal and walk over to the tiny round table in the corner of your kitchen that you barely ever use, since it’s usually cluttered to high hell. But because it’s cleared off from you cleaning it yesterday you might as well sit and watch out the window while you have breakfast. You scoot the chair out and sit down, starting to eat your cereal leisurely as you watch a bird clean itself off in the neighbor’s stone bird bath that sits along the fence between their backyard and yours. As you chew you think back to the night before, and frown down at your bowl.

It’s all still very clear, despite the amount of alcohol you drank making your head hurt this morning and drying your mouth out completely while you slept, it’s not like you forgot anything that happened. Although maybe it would’ve been better that you did, because remembering it is just making you upset all over again. Unfortunately there is no easy cop out for you, you can’t say the beer made you do anything you didn’t want to do, you can’t say that it made you forget about any of it either, it was all you. You sigh, getting down to the last couple pieces of cereal that have begun to get soggy and leaning back in your chair. If anything at this point you aren’t even that sad anymore, but you’re definitely still bitter, because the more you think it over, it doesn’t seem like you even did anything that  _ wrong _ during the argument. The worst charge against you is not speaking clearly, not conveying what you wanted to fast enough before he jumped to conclusions, and that’s kind of his fault for making it into a huge deal and not listening to you. You huff then, drinking up the milk and the last big of your cereal then taking your bowl to the sink.

Now isn’t the time to get all wrapped up in thinking about that though, he isn’t even here so you need to get your head clear and just focus on the work you have to do. You leave the kitchen then and head back to your bedroom, retrieving your laptop and then getting it set up at the desk in the corner of the living room. You need to scoot the bookshelf out from the wall in order to plug your laptop in back there because there is only one outlet in this corner, but you can handle that. It’s a struggle to move such a large piece of furniture, but you only manage to knock like one thing over as you do, so you call that a success. Once that’s done you sign in and wait for everything to load, pulling your phone out as you do.

“Alright Spotify, you better do good here, I’m counting on you to play shit I like so I can work in peace.” You mutter at your phone, opening the app and making it shuffle your music.

You skip the first couple songs that start to play before it settles on something by Hozier that makes for good background music, one of his songs that isn’t too loud or distracting while you work. You hum lightly and get going, opening up the cloud service and your browser. It’s already hell because even first thing in the morning your inbox is flooded with emails that are requesting permissions, and with the boss at home  _ not _ working, you are the only one they can contact. You grumble lightly to yourself as you start to get around twenty people set up, wishing that you were paid more for these oh-so-precious admin privileges.

* * *

“Goodnight..” You say quietly in an empty tone, not being able to look away from her watery eyes as you travel out of here, even though you want to.

You appear in the first place you think of, on the roof of a nearby house that’s still within eye sight of her house. You look around you a second and sink down to sit against the rough shingles and lean back against the bricks of the chimney. You brace your hands against the surface below you and just stare ahead at nothing for a couple seconds, breathing in and out slowly despite not needing to. A couple of moments later you growl deeply from within your throat and scowl down at the tiling of the roof.

_ Why do I always fuck everything up. _

You look down at what you can see of her house where it is a few roofs over and see the lights still on, then you glance down at yourself. You grab either side of your own head and groan, pulling at the hair there.

“Stop it, stop feeling so fucking guilty! I had to get out of there!” You curse at yourself, willing the shitty feelings you have to go away.

You lean back, purposefully knocking your head against the bricks behind you. Then you sigh and close your eyes, slumping down more and letting your shoulders fall heavily. That was horrible in there, and it’s all your fault. But it doesn’t make any damn sense! Of course she would want you to leave, you’ve helped her, and she’s done with you, but then how come she kept insisting that she actually wanted you to stay? That has to be a lie, right? Why would she even still want you around?

You open your eyes again slowly and bring a hand up to touch the side of your mouth where she kissed, just missing your lips by an inch or so. You feel like your hair is probably shifting wildly up there but you can’t be damned to care, there is no one here to see it anyway. She tried to kiss you, you can’t call that a lie as much as you want to try to, but it still doesn’t feel like it’s real. You frown at the air, why does the thing you want have to make you feel terrible inside of good? You like her, you like her a lot and you know this because you’re a dumbass and went and got all attached despite that being a terrible idea in the first place. And here she is, maybe trying to imply she feels the same way, but you’d rather run off then deal with it.

You growl again completely at yourself, pulling your legs in and resting your arms on them as the cool night air blows against you. But you both were drinking, and you were watching her, it looked like she even had a couple more cans than you. You don’t know anything about her alcohol tolerance but you’re fairly certain that must be playing a part in this. You want to believe her, you really do, but it just seems like there is no way in hell that this isn’t either a mistake or some kind of elaborate trick. You know it’s probably just the beer talking, and a huge mistake on her part, what else could it possibly be? Well, maybe it’s about sex, people do tend to like that, and you’re definitely no stranger to fuckin’ people you’ve known way less time than you’ve known her. But based on literally every other interaction you both have had together you can take a wild guess that she didn’t do that because she wants to fuck. Hell, if that’s what she wanted then you guys probably would have figured that out by now. And plus it’s not like you have any  _ other _ qualities that breathers care for, so you’re willing to bet that come morning time when she forgets about all this then you’ll be right, she won’t  _ really _ like you, not that much anyway.

Suddenly you get a shiver running through you, and you sit up to lean forward and stare down at her house from your vantage point up here. The lights are all off now, and she said your name. You shake your head, sitting back again and just trying to ignore it. You see a quick flash of her in her bedroom in your mind’s eye with the call but don’t answer it, deciding not to go down there because you just left and you still need more time. You sigh heavily, trying to just forget about all this for a moment and maybe get your head clear. But then you shiver again, and feel a small tug urging you forward.

“Beetlejuice… won’t... consecutively.. any better.” You hear around you quietly, it’s choppy and broken up but it’s as if it’s being said from right next to you.

Again you see her bedroom and you shake your head, scooting back further and frowning. What is she even trying to say to you? You play it over in your mind a few times, trying to figure out what those broken up words could be in a full sentence together. Just as you think you’re coming to an idea to what she’s trying to say you feel another shiver and a more urgent tug that wants you to move forward towards her house.

You sigh, “Shit.. come on baby, stop calling me, I.. I can’t..” You whisper in a low voice only to yourself, knowing that she can’t hear you like you can hear her, but trying anyway.

You get up and walk around to the other side of the chimney and sit there instead, so your back is facing the house. She keeps trying though, and you feel it each time, with each call you get a flash of her in her bedroom, but nothing else is changing, she’s just sitting there. Eventually through bits and pieces of her talking you gather that she must be trying to make you feel better you think? You hear about how she isn’t going to banish you, and she mentions not repeating your name more than once at a time on purpose. It kind of adds insult to injury here for you because her saying all that is just making you feel worse, and terribly guilty, which isn’t something you usually have to deal with much at all. As you keep hearing half of what she’s trying to say you keep getting tugged and eventually it starts to hurt a little right in the center of your chest. You grasp a hand onto the fabric there and sigh, then you travel down to be on the side of her house instead, leaned up against the short foundation that the house sits on. From this closer position the tug doesn’t hurt anymore, and the next time she calls your name you can tell from her voice that she’s getting tired.

“Beetlejuice.. How… I... Come back…?” Her words echo brokenly, with another look at her bed where she’s started to lean over into the pillows.

You squeeze your eyes shut and sigh, “Come on.. Fall asleep, fall asleep.” You repeat quietly.

After a couple minutes you figure she has, because it’s finally stopped, you don’t even know how long it’s been since you never manage to keep time. You stand back up then and walk along the side of her house, stopping once you get out into the middle of the small backyard and peeking over at the window you know leads to her bedroom. You can’t see anything in there thanks to the darkness of the cloudy sky above you, but you hope that she’s actually asleep and hasn’t just given up for the night.

“Yeah.. just.. Get some rest, please.” You mutter sadly, frowning and traveling away, somewhere farther from the house now that you can do that without getting tugged back.

_ I really fucked this up bad... I’m not sure what I can even do to fix it. _

_ \----- _

You sigh a big breath out and use both hands to push your wheeled chair out from the desk that you’ve been working over for hours. You roll back a good ways, then stretch your legs out which you’ve had folded up in a weird position for far too long at this point, hearing a crack or two as you straighten them and go to stand up shakily. Once on your feet you stretch both arms overhead as well, your stomach peeking out just a bit from your shirt lifting up as you do. You spy yourself in the nearby mirror that sits off to the side of the front door, you fix your shirt over your belly so it’s not caught in the front of your pajama pants and hold a hand there as you frown. Only realizing now that cereal maybe wasn’t the most filling breakfast and it’s easy to lose track of time at the computer, so you definitely need more food. You trudge off to the kitchen at that, feeling good to move around and do something after spending hours at your desk, but still lacking some much needed energy from the bad night’s sleep you managed to get.

You gaze into the fridge for a while, not really seeing anything you want or that will be easy to make so you check the freezer.

“Ah perfect, a hot pocket! I feel like shit so I may as well eat like shit too, whatever.” You say flatly to yourself as you put it on a plate and pop it into your microwave.

You wait around for a bit as it heats, walking over and looking out the window at the neighbor’s yard again, the very popular bird bath from this morning is deserted now so it looks like you don’t even have something to watch out the window while you eat. The beeping sound of the microwave goes off behind you shortly after so you walk back and grab your food, heading out of the kitchen quickly. You stop for just a second and glance at the couch, then decide against it with a frown, taking your hot pocket over to the desk with you instead. You place the plate down and situate yourself in your desk chair once more, folding your legs in a slightly different way so hopefully they won’t hurt later. You look over your inbox real quick and then open up a new tab for Youtube because you’re nearly off the clock anyway, so the benefit of working from home means you can slack off easier. You pull up a random recommended video and hit play, not really caring that much, just wanting some distraction as you chew.

You blow on the hot pocket to try and cool it off as the random compilation video you clicked plays in front of you. You zone out for a while as you watch it, not really paying close attention to it, just enjoying the fact that you have something to distract you so you don’t get all caught up thinking too hard. You’re about half way done with your food when you have to pause the video because you can see your email tab blinking, letting you know that someone sent a new message. You open it up and see that it’s just another co-worker that needs help with file permissions, somehow getting this far into today without access. You roll your eyes and go over to the cloud while you continue eating, using one hand on your mouse to navigate to where you need to go. You set her up easily, then finish chewing and put the plate down off to the side of your computer. You close the Youtube tab you had before and go back to the spreadsheet program you use for data entry, figuring that you can at least finish up the page you left off on in the last bit of time you have for the afternoon.

You half pay attention to the numbers you’re entering, half pay attention to the clock, because you know as soon as it ticks over to the next hour you’ll be free and you can just shut everything down. You realize this probably isn’t smart, because your lack of focus and lack of sleep could lead to mistakes in your work, but right now that is tomorrow’s problem. All you care about at this moment is getting to crawl back into your bed and nap. Was five too late in the afternoon for a nap? Probably, but at this point it doesn’t even matter. You finish one more line of business expenses and look down to your binder to find that you’ve finished this page, which was your goal to begin with. You give everything a quick glance over, and then generate an automatic table using the data, save your work and start to close everything. You heave a deep sigh of relief as you watch it save and close, looking down at the clock on your taskbar to see that you can finally log out for the day. You close the lid of your laptop without even checking back to your email, if anyone dared to send something within the last five minutes then they can wait til tomorrow morning.

You stand up then and pocket your phone happily, grabbing the plate you ate on before and heading off to the kitchen to drop it in the sink. You place it in the nearly clear sink and smile, thinking back to that funny clone who washed all the dishes for you. He may be some kind of copy of the original demon, who you’re mad at, but at least he did a good job. You turn on your heel and start to head out of the kitchen again, so ready to get back into bed that you have to stifle a yawn as you pass through the archway back into the living room. You squeeze your eyes shut and hold a hand over your mouth as you pause in place, waiting for the yawn to subside so you can get back to business, making a beeline for your bedroom. As you come down from it a moment later and open your eyes back up you’re met with a familiar ghost standing in the center of your living room.

You jump in place with a short yelp of surprise, your eyes shooting open wide, “Where did you come from?!” You manage, startled at his sudden appearance.

He gives a weak wave with one hand, looking nervous, “Uh… Hey babe!” He pauses for a while as your face comes down from one of being surprised to a more neutral expression, “Is it.. Okay if I’m here?” He asks then.

You squint your eyes a little at him, “Yeah, why wouldn’t it be? You live here.” You try to say it normally, but it comes out a lot harsher than you meant it to.

You see him wince lightly at your tone, “Alright so, still mad, good to know!” He says, laughing nervously.

You frown and cross your arms, walking slowly over to the left to keep yourself moving as you face away from him and talk, “What gave you that idea?” You add sarcastically.

“...So I assume that you remember yesterday then?” He asks, not approaching as you walk around a bit away from him.

You stop walking and look to the floor, not wanting to attempt to meet his eyes, if he would even hold it in the first place, “Y-yeah.. I do.” You say quietly.

Now you feel kind of small and awkward here, just waiting for him to say something in return, even though the main focus should really be on him instead. And the fact that he was kind of a huge asshole and you deserve an apology for that at least. The long silence feels quite a good bit like what you’re about to get is rejection, or some other negative reaction at least, and you figure he’ll probably want to leave of his own accord anyway regardless of the misunderstanding from the night before. You brace yourself for it and already start getting yourself ready in your head for what you want to say, but then it doesn’t happen.

“Okay, so if you’re really angry with me, that’s fine. I get it! I completely understand, I did blow up out of nowhere and I’m sure… that sucked. So uh.. Well I am going to thoroughly blame it on the alcohol.” He starts to explain, you look up at him as he’s talking and begin to frown.

“What..?” You say, but he keeps going.

“What was that song? It had like… T-Pain in it? You know the one..” He’s rambling then, looking up at the ceiling in thought. 

“Wait wait..” You stop him, taking a step closer, “Is  that all you’re worried about here?”

He tilts his head to the side, “Well yeah? What else would I be worried about? I clearly made you mad, I wasn’t sure if I should’ve waited longer to come back.”

You shake your head, “Uh, okay, well yeah, you did make me mad… and really sad.. But like, you can fix the mad part pretty easily I think? But what about--” He cuts you off then.

“Oh really? Sweet! What do you need me to do?” He says happily.

“Are you for real right now?” You say, just staring at him.

“..Yes?” He questions in a confused tone.

You sigh, holding your face in your hands for a second and then looking back up at him with a flat expression, “I can’t believe I need to spell it out for you.”

He just waits, looking to you to continue, so you do, “What I’m waiting for is an  _ apology _ , Beetlejuice.” You explain then, crossing your arms once more.

He brightens instantly, like a light bulb finally came on above his head, “Pshh, is that all?”

He takes a few steps closer to stop in front of you, “My bad Babe.” He says seriously, looking down to you.

You scowl at him hard, “A  _ real _ apology.”

He averts his eyes and pulls at the collar of his shirt for a moment, “Aw jeez… Okay...” he pauses for a while before clearing his throat, “I’m sorry.” he finally gets out, looking down to you again.

You soften only a bit, uncrossing your arms, “..For?” You push, looking up at him.

He shrugs lightly, “Everything I’ve ever done?” he tries hesitantly.

You snort, “No come on, actually.” A tiny smile threatens to come to you at his words but you resist for now.

He shifts on his feet a bit, “Okay okay… uh.. For yelling at you? And being a  _ huge _ dick.. Innuendo intended.. And.. vanishing?” He tries this time legitimately, looking to you with a nervous expression after finishing.

You look to be mulling it over for a bit, eyeing the ceiling in thought as you tap your chin, “Hmm..” After a long pause you continue, “Fine. I guess that’s good enough.” You say hesitantly.

He brightens, “Wow that  _ was _ easy! Awesome.” He says, starting to walk past you then.

“Now everything can just go back to normal, and--” But you cut him off, grabbing his sleeve to stop him and turning to face him again.

“Wait.. But, aren’t we uh.. Missing something here?” You try, feeling awkward again.

He just looks at you confused, “But you said my apology was good... I thought I covered all the bad shit I did?”

You swallow your nerves and look up to meet his eyes, “Well yeah… but what about the  _ rest _ of what happened last night?”

His eyes widen a little, “Oh…” he breathes out quietly.

He clears his throat, looking away then, “You remember that part too?”

“I wasn’t  _ that _ drunk Beej…” You say in a somewhat joking tone, despite feeling scared of what he’s going to say.

He fidgets his hands together a bit, “Haha.. yeah, I guess you’re right.” He pauses for a long while after he’s done speaking, then suddenly he stands up straighter and smiles, “Well listen babe, no hard feelings, I won’t take it personally.” He finally says.

You look up at him confused, “What are you talking about?” You question.

“Well it was a pretty  _ rough _ prank, ya got me good! And I’ll admit, I was upset at the time, but I forgive you.” He says easily.

You squint at him angrily, “You… have got to be kidding me.” You say in a low tone.

“No I mean it! It’s no problem at all, I can just forget you said anything--” He tries, but you cut him off quickly.

“How dare you!” You yell suddenly, pointing up at him.

His eyes widen at the sudden increase in volume and he’s looking down at you nervously, “Uh, I--” He steps back hesitantly, but you keep going, stomping towards him as you do.

“You  _ lousy _ \--” You keep going at him, really fuming.

He starts to back up quickly and keeps trying to cut in as you push on angrily, walking up to him faster than he can step backwards until his back hits against the far wall and you’ve gotten right in front of him to scowl up at his face. He actually looks downright afraid of you, which is almost funny enough to make you laugh right now, but you don’t. How dare he make your feelings out to be some joke, or try to play this off like what you said wasn’t actually real. You had a bit of a push from the beer last night but it still took a lot for you to try and tell him how you are really feeling and now he’s acting like you don’t even mean it, which is worse than a rejection honestly because it’s just insulting at this point. It’s like he’s _ trying _ to be mean to you on purpose, for no reason! He was the one that freaked out and yelled at you last night, why do you deserve this too?

As you’re busy staring angrily up at him, trying to figure out what thing you’re going to say first off of the long list of shit you want to yell, he tries again, “Listen it’s really um.. It’s not even that big of a deal.. You’re obviously  _ very _ mad, so maybe let’s calm down a bit and--”

“Not a big deal?!” You question, eyeing him hard, surprised he hasn’t just phased through the wall behind him to get away from you at this point.

Then before you can keep going he continues, “Yeah uh… I mess with people all the time, I won’t take it to heart or--”

You cut in, “I honestly.. can NOT believe you.” You snap, before stepping back and hanging your head to stare down at the floor, some of the anger leaving you for disbelief instead.

He doesn’t say anything in return so you just keep going, “Messing with you!” You laugh in an empty way, “You think  _ I’m _ messing you.”

You look up at him again then, looking at his face and searching it for a reaction as you scan your eyes over him. He still looks kind of afraid, really nervous, and even though you can’t believe it, he doesn’t look malicious. You shake your head in disbelief, he couldn’t possibly mean it for real can he? Does he legitimately think you’re messing with him still? How could it be possible that he isn’t just doing this to be an asshole on purpose? You lock eyes with him then and stare him down, his amber eyes not leaving your gaze surprisingly unlike the night before, but holding the contact and looking down at you in waiting. You furrow your eyebrows at him and glance down for just a moment, it didn’t work out for you last night but at least this time you are completely steady and sober so you know you won’t miss. Here goes nothing.

“Come ‘ere” You grumble at him quickly, grabbing hold of his murky black tie with all the mystery splotches dotting it.

You pull him down by the tie then and meet him halfway, he doesn’t really have a chance to react before you crash your lips against his, this time landing spot on and not missing. Just like the night before you feel him jump in surprise as you make contact, but this time you can feel him reciprocate for a tiny fleeting moment before pulling back. You keep a hold of his tie as you stare up at him, trying to take in his reaction. He looks nervous still, but not afraid anymore, maybe even a little sad? You glance up at his hair and sure enough you see that it’s mostly purple, but with a large splash of light pink up the front of it, which you can only hope is a good thing. 

“Do you believe me now?!” You ask sternly, despite the warmth you feel spreading over your face you try your best to hold this confidence.

“I…” He starts, but doesn’t continue right away, staring back at you for a long time before averting his eyes once more as purple completely takes over his hair, “Darlin’ please...” He finally gets out.

“Don’t be cruel to me here, I said I could just forget about it...” He trails off, frowning.

You soften, letting his tie slip from your hands and looking down at the floor with a heavy sigh. You really can’t figure out why he won’t just get it in his head that you mean it, and how on earth is this cruel to him? You just can’t wrap your head around this issue and you frown down at the floor in deep thought before he keeps going.

“Listen I dunno what motive you have for trying to trick me here.. I was already willing to do pretty much anything you wanted, ya know?” He says gently, pausing for a bit and then looking off to the side.

His expression looks a little pained as he continues before you can say anything in return, “I’m not.. _ Your boss  _ or whatever. If you’re trying to get something out of me here, just ask, that’s... what friends are for, right?” He says hesitantly, in a quiet voice.

You feel like you’re going to cry all over again just like the night before, and your hands are shaking now, but you keep it together enough to keep talking, “Do you..  _ Really _ think I would do that to you?” You manage desperately, looking back up at him.

He makes eye contact with you again after you ask, but doesn’t say anything, just frowns more and looks away with a very guilty expression, “I’m not trying to trick you... I promise!” You try. 

You watch him as he just looks down at nothing and furrows his eyebrows, looking very conflicted and sad still. You sigh, all the anger having left you at this point. It was just making you remember how tired you are to be so tense and yell so much, so you deflate instead, stepping back and looking down at the ground as well as you think. Should you just explain yourself with words? Maybe telling him everything will work? It will be embarrassing, but maybe that will at least get him to start believing you. You need him to believe you first if you even want to start to unpack the rest of the problem here. You’ve tried actions over words twice now already and it obviously isn’t working, maybe it’s making it worse? You grumble, rubbing your hands over your face and blowing out a puff of air.

“Beetlejuice..” You start, and you notice him look up at you from the floor, “Listen to me. I did… I did a lot of thinking.. Way too much, all the time, and it was terrible! I have been struggling for days now because…” You pause, closing your eyes and blowing out a big breath. Here goes nothing.

“You remember that night I had a nightmare?” You ask, and look to him for a response, but he just nods, looking like he’s listening intently.

“Well after we hugged, I just..” You sigh, pushing forward, “I dunno,  _ everything _ in me just wanted to ask you to stay, ya know? I didn’t want to send you back out to the living room, and.. Just.. Shit.. I wanted you to keep comforting me, and hugging me, and well.. I found out that I liked being close to you a lot more than I thought that I would and…and then I couldn’t sleep cause’ I couldn’t stop thinking about you.. you ass!” You finish in a bit of a joking tone, hoping to maybe lighten the mood a bit.

He doesn’t laugh but you notice his lips tug up into a small smile so you keep going, “I ended up talking with one my of friends,  _ dear god the voice of reason that she is _ , she helped me realize that I’m a damn fool and I’ve fuckin’.. Probably liked you for a while I guess? I was just pushing it away into the back of my mind instead of addressing it.” You finally finish.

You search his face for any changes and he definitely still looks sad but it’s a little different now, and he’s started to step closer at least, “But..  _ why _ ? I don’t get it.” He says quietly, sounding kind of hollow but just a bit hopeful too, which you take as a good sign.

You huff, “What do you mean  _ why _ ? I...Jeez, don’t make me sit here and explain that. Can’t you see that I’m telling the truth?” You feel your face warming with embarrassment at the prospect of having to explain even further.

He scans over your face for a second before making eye contact with you finally, and you hold it. Staring him down, not angrily like before, but openly and honestly, hoping that he can at least tell that you’re not attempting to be manipulative here like he keeps assuming. You watch him try to hold your gaze as well but he soon breaks it to look at the floor again. Damn it, you can see you’re starting to make progress here, you have to keep going before he has time to overthink what you’re saying or make an excuse or something. Which means it’s time to just swallow your pride and get on with it, if he wants an explanation then he’s gonna get one. 

“You’re funny!” You say abruptly, and he looks back up in surprise, “You always make me laugh with the dumb shit you say. It’s like you always have a bunch of crude jokes and references to be ready for any situation, half of which I don’t even get. And I love that we can always bounce jokes back and forth, it’s great!”

You watch him intently as you talk, you know he’s paying attention so you keep going, “And you’ve been  _ shockingly _ nice to me for a literal demon! You say you’re some evil guy from hell but you’ve helped me a lot, even when you didn’t have to, because I mean let’s face it… I don’t have any power over you here. You could’ve gotten your abilities back and ran. But you didn’t! The only thing I can really do is send you away, and even if I did banish you, that wouldn’t have helped me any. So really I was leaving my fate at that office with that prick William completely up to you.” You pause a while, “And.. you didn’t let me down.”

“Yeah..” He says hesitantly, making eye contact again finally.

He looks like he’s about to cut in, but you keep going, taking this chance at confidence and running with it, “My life before I saw you was boring as shit, and I had nothing going for me. I worked all day just to come back and spend what little time I had trying to relax all alone. I never did anything fun, I didn’t make any friends at the office or anywhere near me because all I did was work and then recharge in order to work again. It sucked.” You explain, scowling from just thinking of the job you hate, and how it turned your life into that.

“That’s probably true..” He says slowly, glancing away in thought.

“It’s cause’ of you that I have something to definitely look forward everyday! My life is actually exciting now, even if we just laze around all day on the couch or whatever, at least I have someone to spend time with. Plus I can always count on your cool powers to, ironically, bring life into a dead and boring afternoon or whatever. And you were totally right... I think we make a _ great  _ team!” You finally finish, just going with the first things that came to your mind and gushing all at once, hoping he’ll get the whole picture here after everything you had to say.

“Wow… You are saying  _ a lot  _ of sentimental shit here babe..” He finally replies, a small smile present as he says it.

You smile a little yourself, putting your hands on your hips, “Well yeah, duh. What did you expect? You asked me  _ why _ I like you.. so if anything that’s your fault.” 

“Okay, that’s fair.” He says easily with a shrug, then the smile leaves him again and he sighs.

“But... I know what breathers like, and it isn’t  _ this. _ ” He says then, gesturing widely to himself with his hands.

Your expression falls, and you mull over his statement as you pause a second, shaking your head and deciding to just be honest, “I think you’re hot too, okay? Is that what you want to hear? If you just want me to stroke your ego can you quit it?” You say, feeling embarrassed at having to admit that too.

He snickers lightly, “Well no, that’s not exactly what I was after, but.. Good to know~” He says teasingly.

You grumble, feeling your face heat up, “Would you start talking or something!” You pause and look away, “I’ve.. been going this whole time, and you’re not even saying anything in return! I don’t wanna hear shit about this being a trick or a prank, because I can not get any more _ real _ than what I’ve already said to you, so if you...”

You trail off for a bit and frown, then keep going only quieter, “If you don’t feel the same, or if you hate me now for whatever reason, just.. please at least  _ tell _ me? Don’t try to pretend I don’t mean the things I’m saying... Or I will fucking punch you.” You finish sternly, trying to show that you mean business here. 

You look up to him again and he takes a step closer, “Alright wait, let’s not get hasty… I  _ do not  _ hate you. Let me just get this straight..”

He fidgets with his fingers for a second before starting, “So you’re saying you stumbled face first into having a revelation about me or something, then your friend threw you under the metaphorical emotional bus and you were forced to realize that you actually  _ like  _ me. Like as more than just your exciting ghost friend... And also you think I am extremely handsome and sexy?” He recounts quickly, counting off the events on his fingers.

You feel yourself blush at his last statement, looking down, “Um.. I didn’t say it all  _ exactly _ like that, but… yeah kinda?” You reply quietly.

“Alright, well what about uh..” He looks down in thought for a second but then comes back quickly, “What about how I grow moss on me?” He questions, pointing to the side of his face where a small patch is.

You look up at him quickly in confusion, “What about it? It’s soft and it has a fresh earthy smell. What does that have to do with this?” You say easily, tilting your head to the side as you stare at him.

He crosses his arms, “Well what about the rest of me, I’ve been told I smell  _ terrible _ , I know you aren’t a fan of that!” He says confidently, like he’s really on to something now.

You shift on your feet, “Yeah it’s not the  _ best _ , but honestly I think you just smell like dirt, it’s your main clothes that smell bad. And that’s cause I can bet money that you have never once washed them.” You say matter-of-factly, gesturing to him as you speak.

“... Does falling into a river once count as washing?” He suddenly asks.

You laugh lightly despite the still tense situation, “No, no it does not.”

“Okay then yes you would win that bet.” He admits quietly, unfolding his arms.

You smirk at him in victory and he looks much less conflicted now, and he’s also taken a few steps closer to you, “So you’re.. Fine with me having bugs in my hair then?” He asks hesitantly.

“Well.. I would  _ prefer _ them to live somewhere else, but I am willing to accept them as part of the package..” You trail off for a bit and then use an overly dramatic voice, “If I must!”

“I am not willing to evict Rupert and Janis, they’re expecting 2 kids soon, that would be heartless of me.” He says seriously.

You both break out of the bit a second later to laugh lightly, and you notice that he has started to really close the distance between the two of you as he’s nearly standing right in front of you now instead of up against the far wall. But then he stops smiling suddenly and looks down at the ground for a long moment, coming back up to meet your eyes with a very serious expression after he does.

“What about me being, ya know..  _ dead _ ?” He says evenly, not breaking away from the eye contact.

You frown and think on it for a good long moment, that’s a hard one since it’s the one thing that was stopping you from addressing your feelings in the first place. It’s nowhere near normal, him being here at all is one of the craziest things you’ve ever seen, and you still fear that it might have some terrible consequences that you don’t even know of yet. But despite all that you can’t really deny what you want at this point, especially not after you’ve already come this far.

You look away for a bit and then back to him, your smile returning as well, “You have heaps more humanity than some of the soulless husks that work in my office” You say finally, doing a zombie-ish pose for added effect.

He cackles at that, brightening instantly. He is right up next to you now, and a second later you feel him snake an arm around your waist and just holds his hand there lightly. “You really mean it babe?” He says softly.

You take a big breath and then grin up at him, after all this he finally looks like he actually believes you, “I do! I spent a long time thinking about it, and  _ I like you _ Beetlejuice! I know for sure that definitely makes me crazy, but I have accepted at this point that that’s just a consequence of knowing you.” You say happily.

You’re staring up at him now, only inches apart, waiting for some kind of affirmation or response. His eyes search over your face like he did the other times before, and you try to hold steady but it’s hard when he’s very close to you, and end up glancing down at his lips instead.

He catches that, and a smirk comes to him, “Well... let’s do this right this time then.” he says just above a whisper.

He leans down and closes the gap between you easily, bringing your lips together again just like you did the first time around, but this time it is much slower and softer than it was before. You slide your arms up to wrap around his neck as you sigh into the kiss and he just pulls you in closer by the waist. It lasts a long time, but it’s gentle and surprisingly innocent, not at all what you expected kissing him would be like once he’s actually reciprocating. Eventually you do have to pull away though, because he may have forgotten that you actually need to breathe unlike he does.

“You know… that’s really unfair of you.” You whisper, still holding on.

He straightens up now that he doesn’t have to lean forward to reach your mouth but doesn’t let go either, “What is?”

“How come when I try to show how I feel using actions you run away, but then you get to do the same back to me?” You say, leaning back to look up at him.

He sighs, “I guess cause’ I’m a fuck up.. And a real mess. Are you _ sure _ that you wanna willingly sign up for that?” He asks quietly. 

You furrow your eyebrows at him and pull him down into a hug, “Surprisingly yes, even though you’re fuckin’ annoying.”

You feel him smile into your shoulder as you grip him tightly, “I believe you now, don’t worry… Sorry for being such an asshole.”

You pull back and look up at him, “That’s alright I guess.. You weren’t saying all that stuff to be mean on purpose right? That’s what I thought you were doing at first..” 

He steps back from you finally, letting go, “Not exactly, I... I  _ wanted  _ to believe you, but it was kind of impossible to imagine you meaning it? So I just figured that there must be some other reason. That you wanted something from me, or whatever..” He explains.

You sigh, letting your shoulders sag down as you feel his hands leave you, “Yeah but, did you really mean it, that you thought I was just trying to manipulate you and treat you like my horrible boss?” You ask quietly, not meeting his eyes.

He frowns, “I.. um.. Maybe? I’m  _ really  _ sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.” He trails off quietly, swaying on his feet in front of you and rubbing a hand on his arm as he looks down.

You look around at his face, he does seem to mean it, despite how messed up of a thing to say that was. You sigh, wringing your hands together nervously, “Well, I think I can forgive you.. I’m glad I don’t have to push you to apologize this time at least.”

He looks like he wants to say something in return but you keep going instead, “But you gotta know that I wouldn’t do that, okay? I  _ only _ fuck with people I don’t like. And you are my friend still, even though uh.. we may have just changed that a little, in a good way..” You trail off.

He nods intently, “Okay.. I will definitely keep that in mind and try not to keep fucking this up in the future.”

You frown, “Stop phrasing it that way. People fight, and that’s okay. It was just a misunderstanding… If I had just, said it more clearly to begin with..” You start to say.

He shakes his head, “No no, people do fight  _ sure _ , but that didn’t have to be one, I made it one.” He says sternly.

Then he softens and keeps going, “You shouldn’t blame yourself, really, I know it’s my fault. You weren’t clear in like, your first sentence, but I already had it stuck in my head that you were just waiting for the right time to kick me to curb so that’s why I just jumped to that conclusion all on my own.” He admits.

You sigh, “Well still, I’m not mad anymore, so let’s just move past it okay?” Then you pause for a bit and step forward to hold a hand on his arm gently, “I promise you, I am perfectly fine with you being here, I  _ want you _ here, so you can go ahead and remove the idea that I want you gone from your head immediately.”

He smiles warmly at that, and looks around for a bit like he’s searching for something to say in return. You wait, just to see if he has anything to say, but you’re still pretty tired and going on this emotional rollercoaster with him has only made that worse. So you lose focus and look down, rubbing a hand over your eyes slowly. Thinking about it now, maybe it’s fine to not continue that conversation actually. You’d rather just focus on the present, now that you’ve both kinda sorted this out. You look up and notice his hair has completely changed to that familiar pink color, you smile and reach out to touch it.

You run your fingers through the hair on the side of his head, “You know.. You never did tell me what this color means.” You say gently, changing the subject instead.

“Have you  _ really _ not put it together yet?” He asks, looking down at you in obvious doubt.

You huff lightly, “Well I know it’s a positive emotion at least! It’s been tough you know, it seems to just randomly appear at completely different times. I could be talking about or doing different things entirely but your hair goes pink during both.” You explain.

“Sure, but what is the one thing in common every time you’ve seen it pink?” He asks, trying to lead you to the right answer.

“Every time was _totally_ different, that’s what I’m saying! At first I thought maybe it meant you were thankful, or like, confused? Or comfortable, or.. I dunno, would you just tell me?” You try, not really getting what he’s trying to say.

He sighs, “It’s only been turning pink cause’ of… You. It’s when  _ you _ said something nice to me, or did something really thoughtful, or complimented me or whatever…” He admits, looking away.

“Oh, um--” You stutter, but he keeps going.

“It means that I’m, uh, it means I’m feeling affectionate, or... urgg… It shows that I like you back, okay? You get what I’m saying here right?” He tries, looking embarrassed and his hair reflects it with a stripe of yellow as well.

You try to giggle quietly, holding a hand over your mouth, “So your hair blushes too when you have a crush on someone? That’s so fuckin’  _ adorable _ .. Oh my god.”

He grumbles and turns away, “Don’t mock me!”

You’re about to respond, but then your eyes go wide, “Wait a minute but…” You trail off, mentally recounting how long ago it was that you first saw that color pop up.

“It’s been so long!!” You yell suddenly, grabbing a hold of his arm and bringing him forward to look at you again. 

“Yeah.” he says flatly.

“But.. but.. If you? Then… That whole time?!” You trip over your words before finally asking.

“For someone who is so smart, you _ sure _ were slow to realize.” He teases, laughing lightly.

You feel yourself blush then you pout up at him, “Why didn’t you just tell me!”

He blows air out in a small puff, smiling then reaching over and ruffling a hand in your hair, “ _ Oh sure _ baby, tell me how this would have gone.. “ He pauses and clears his throat, “You’ve had a demon in your house for like a week, you’re heating up soup on the stove or whatever and then I come up, all smooth, and say ‘What’s cookin’ sweet cheeks, you’re lookin’ _ fine _ , wanna make out?’ completely seriously.” He asks, looking to you expectantly.

You snort, “Okay yeah, I probably would have slapped you.” You admit with a small smile.

“Exactly! And believe me, I was worried enough about being banished, I didn’t need to give you any extra reasons to dislike me and want me out of your house.” He explains easily.

“Alright, that’s fair, I guess I didn’t think of it that way...” You say, rubbing your hand on your arm awkwardly.

Suddenly a big yawn hits you out of nowhere and you tilt forward as you hold a hand over your mouth, Beetlejuice reaches out and stops you from leaning too far forward though, and then pats you on the shoulder lightly. You come down from it with half lidded eyes and sigh, stepping up to him and leaning forward to put your forehead directly on the front of his chest.

He snickers as he strokes a hand down your hair, “You look exhausted, was working from home that hard?” He asks.

Before you can say anything he is grabbing a hold of you and teleporting you both to the couch in a swift motion despite it being right there next to you. You hum quietly as he brings you there and you sink down into the cushions happily as soon as you feel yourself land on them.

It takes a bit but then as you’re leaning against his side as you answer, “Well it wasn’t easy, but no, it’s mostly because I barely slept at all last night.”

He frowns, “Oh yeah.. I forgot about that.” He says quietly. 

You lean away and look up at him, “Wait.. how did you know? You weren’t here.” You question him.

He looks guilty again and doesn’t mean your eyes, “I was uh, I didn’t go very far, and you kept calling me for most of the night, so I knew you weren’t asleep.”

“Right..” You say quietly, looking down, “I’m.. um.. I’m sorry.” You say after a bit.

He puts an arm around you easily, “Don’t be, I’m an ass, I deserved more than that honestly.”

You sigh, “Last night was just.. A disaster.” You mutter.

He grunts in affirmation and you just lean back into his side, breathing gently. You look down at the clock and see that it probably isn’t early enough to just go to bed for the night since you aren’t a grandma, plus you haven’t had dinner, but you aren’t actually even that hungry at this point, just very tired. So tired in fact that you’re heavily considering just sleeping right where you are, because it would be faster and you’re no stranger to the couch now thanks to him. And you almost do, because as you’re sitting there thinking you may have started to doze for a solid couple minutes before you jolt up and shake your head to get yourself more awake.

You gasp suddenly, some energy coming back as you sit up more, “I have a great idea!” You announce.

He turns to look down at you from his position right above your face but before he can respond you lean up and kiss him again, landing messily against his lips and holding it for a few seconds. He hums lightly against you and kisses back, using the arm that isn’t draped over your shoulder to reach around and hold you closer. It’s really nice and it takes some true willpower to not just melt into it and do that for the next twenty minutes, but you’ve gotta stop and pull away. You scoot back and turn your body towards him, his arm falls away to rest in his lap and he looks at you warmly.

“Was that the idea? Cause’ you’re right, it was pretty great..” He says, his hair not leaving the pink state it’s been in for a while, which makes you smile now that you know what it’s about.

“No, no, it’s something else...” You trail off, clearing your throat and trying to get your voice to go as deep as it can.

You hold a hand out to him, palm up, and keep talking, “Do you trust me?” You ask, doing your best to replicate his voice despite not having that signature rasp that he does.

He snickers, then grins at you mischievously, clearing his throat as well before speaking.

“Yeah, I trust you.” He says easily, perfectly mimicking your voice and placing his hand atop yours.

You shake your head, “Oh god, no no, that’s so creepy!” You complain as you grip his hand.

“Oh really? I had no idea!” He says unconvincingly, still sounding like you.

“Would you stop!” You insist, standing up and pulling him up with you by the hand.

He laughs, breaking out of it and sounding like himself again, “Fine fine, what’s up?” He asks then.

You smirk up at him, “Follow me.”

You lead him through the middle of the living room, into your bedroom, flicking on the light as you come in, and then into the bathroom. You stop inside, turning on the light in here as well and then letting go of his hand once you’re both past the threshold of the doorway. The room isn’t that big, so it’s kind of cramped to have the two of you standing where you are, you scoot him into the bathroom further and then stand back so you’re between him and the door, closing it behind you. He’s looking at you confused this whole time.

“Uh.. okay, this is your bathroom, what’s going on?” He asks, eyeing you suspiciously.

You hold your hands out at him calmly, “Just uh.. Promise you won’t vanish when I say it?”

He squints at you, “I’m not so sure about that…”

You smile brightly, “Come on you said you trust me!”

He folds his arms and frowns, “Okay fine. Go.”

You take a deep breath and then go for it, “I need you… to take a shower.” You say slowly.

“Absolutely n--” He starts.

“Wait!! But hear me out!” You say over him, stepping forward and stopping him from walking through the wall to get away from you.

He scowls and steps back from going through the wall, “You aren’t gonna convince me.” He says easily.

“But it’s for a surprise!” You say hopefully, pulling on his arm and smiling up at him excitedly.

He sighs when he sees your expression, “What do you mean? And how will me becoming sad and soaked like a stray cat in the rain help any?”

“Well let me rephrase, I have a surprise  _ for you _ , but you have to take a shower first in order to get it.” You try, not letting go of him.

He lets out a low whistle, “Oof, sure is a shame that uh.. Birthdays are  _ super _ traumatic for me so all surprises are strictly prohibited for the rest of time. Looks like I will just be going back to the living room an--”

You scrunch up your face at him and frown, “You’re lying.”

He pulls out of your grasp to fold his arms, “What no! You should see me, deathly afraid of.. Cake, and … Balloons.” He tries, turning his head away with closed eyes.

“You love dessert.” You say flatly, staring up at him.

He opens an eye to peek down at you, “Your point?”

You roll your eyes and take a step back to your sink, turning and hoping up onto it to use the counter edge as a seat, “Well you said you trusted me, so you gotta!”

He walks up to you then, looking at you at eye level thanks to the height gain from the sink, “That’s not how that works!”

You lean your hands back against the cold porcelain, “It seemed to work that way when you did the same thing to me.” You say easily.

He frowns, then steps forward to stand in between where your legs are hanging over the edge of the sink and lean into you, “Come on, there’s only so many hours in a day, wouldn’t you rather be doing literally anything else?”

You hesitate in answering and shift slightly in how you’re seated, he’s very close to you right now and it’s quite a bit distracting. He picks up on that you think because you see him smirk and he sneaks a hand around to hold your lower back, pulling you forward into him so you’re barely on the edge of the sink anymore.

Then he leans forward and nestles his face into the crook of your neck, speaking against the skin there, “I can think of  _ quite a few _ more fun things to be doing actually, rather than staying here in a stalemate.”

You shiver at the feeling of his stubble scratching against the sensitive skin there but you shake your head and use a free hand to push his face back gently so it’s farther away from you and you can look at him directly again.

“I may think you’re hot but you can’t seduce your way out of this one big guy.” You say knowingly, patting him on the cheek softly.

He smiles, “Okay yeah, I should have known you’d be too tough for that, but can you fault me for trying?”

You shrug with a small smile of your own, “Not really.”

He laughs lightly and you rest both of your hands on his shoulders, “Seriously though.. Can’t you just get cleaned off, it’s not even that big of a deal.” You say.

“But I  _ really  _ don't want to.” He pauses as you roll your eyes, “You don’t know what it’s like babe, I’ve had this grime for years! And you want me to just throw it all away!”

You sigh, “You’re talking about dirt like it’s sentient, having it that long is all the more reason to get washed off!”

“Well that’s easy for you to say! How would you like it if I said the same thing about um.. “ He trails off, looking at you intently, “Your.. hair?”

“Bug that makes no sense, my hair grows out of my head, you do not  _ grow  _ dirt.” You say easily.

“You don’t know that.” He adds quietly.

You stare at him flatly and he frowns, “Okay fine, I don’t.” He admits, looking away.

You guide him back gently to give yourself some room and hop down from the sink to stand in front of him, “I won’t stop you just gettin’ all nasty again later, if you really want, but can’t you just shower for now? Please?” You ask nicely as you look up at him, surprisingly not having lost all your patience yet.

He looks back down at your expression and groans so you keep going, “Aren’t you at least a little bit curious what the surprise is? I think you’ll  _ reaallyy _ like it~” You say teasingly.

He closes his eyes and frowns, “Nope, not even a little bit.” He tries to stay stern.

You grab a hold of his arm and hold it, then use the most sickly sweet voice you can, “Pleassseee, won’t you do it for me..?” You trail off.

You look up at him, he glances back down at you and in that instant you get an excellent idea. A mischievous grin spreads across your face a second later as you stare up at him and you see him shift nervously, but before he can say anything you keep going.

“Baby!” You say happily.

“Wha?” He hesitates, stepping backwards.

You push forward, leaning into him as he tries to step away, “I would be really happy if you did.. Honey~” You pile it on, smiling up at him as you see a strange swirl of yellow and pink mixing in his hair.

He’s backed up into the wall now so you get up on your tiptoes to look at him in the eyes more easily, bracing your hands against his chest, “What’s wrong,  _ Darling _ ?” You smirk at him slyly.

He gulps, “That’s so  _ completely _ unfair.” He mutters, staring back at you.

You snicker, but not backing down even in the slightest, and you’re about to open your mouth to keep going when he cuts you off, “Okay _ god _ , you win, I’ll do it! I’ll take a damn shower.” He says quickly.

You cheer happily, hugging him as he sways forward away from the wall, “Yes! Perfect!”

“Alright I’m gonna need you to uh.. To back up now.” He mumbles, letting go of the hug quickly, sounding uncomfortable.

You lean back and look at him confused, “What, why?” You question.

“I’m gonna get a boner.” He says flatly.

You snort and lean forward to bonk your head against his shoulder as you laugh hard, before stepping away and grabbing for the doorknob to open up the door back into your bedroom.

“Jeez, sensitive much?” You tease.

“You are  _ the worst _ .” He mutters, turning away and opening up the shower curtain in a sulking defeat.

You take a step out and then turn and wait in the doorway, “You don’t mean that.” You reply easily.

“Yeah, I don’t.” He admits with a sigh, turning back to you then.

You smirk, “Plus can you really complain? If I remember correctly, I believe it was actually  _ you _ , who told me to call you those very names just the other day.”

He grumbles, “Well yeah, but I was joking ya know..  _ At the time _ .”

Instead of responding you just put on your best face of innocence and shrug your shoulders. You see that his hair is nearly completely settled on pink now aside from some creeping purple on the sides so you know he’s not embarrassed anymore, probably just sad and dreading the cleaning process. And it’s got a few flecks of a brighter more vibrant pink mixed in too, which is curious. it’s been a lighter dusty pink this whole time, you haven’t seen that particular color look bright like the greens and reds that his hair have also sported, but you figure it’s probably still a good thing though since pink is such a positive emotion.

You smile, gesturing to the wall beside you, “Okay so I’m assuming you don’t need any help, towels are here, you can use whatever soaps of mine you want, they’re all in the shower already.” You explain.

He smirks, “I dunno I mean I could use  _ some _ help, you could uh,  _ come in with me _ \--” He tries, but you stop him.

“Nope. Good luck in there!” You say easily, stepping back and then closing the bathroom door.

As you’re walking back to your bed you stop and call over your shoulder, “And I’ll be out here waiting so no funny business, you better come out clean!” You make sure before sitting on the edge of the bed.

You hear a distant “Yeah yeah!” in return from him in an annoyed voice which makes you laugh again.

You sink down into the mattress of your bed and sigh, wishing to just lay down fully, but you don’t, because you know that if your head hits that pillow while you’re waiting for him you’re going to pass out for sure. So instead you stretch lightly and reach for your phone, pulling up your messages and looking over Vic’s chat log in your history. As you start to type you hear the water come on in the bathroom, which is a relief because you figured he would have at least one more trick up his sleeve despite eventually agreeing after you had to push him so much. You can’t say it wasn’t fun though, going on the all out pet name offensive and using it to your advantage, you’re just surprised he gave in so easily, you were prepared to keep going for much longer than that.

“Hey I’m sorry I left you on read and I was kind of an ass the other night.. But you can start celebrating your victory now, because you were right.” You hit send, setting your phone down and shaking your head.

You know she’s gonna gloat and rub in it forever that you should have just listened to her to begin with, but you know when it’s time to admit defeat. Despite the extremely sloppy execution and it actually taking two days of on and off arguing, you both eventually got there in the end, and that’s all she needs to know for now. You stand up then and walk over to your dresser, kneeling down and rummaging around in your bottom drawer as you look for a bag you know you put somewhere. After a couple minutes you give up there and go to check your closet instead, but stop to pick up your phone again after hearing it buzz on your nightstand.

“Hell yeah. I knew it!” She types back, and you smile down at the phone.

Before you start to type another message back though you squint at the screen, suddenly suspicious, “But one thing doesn’t sit right with me… How come you were literally telling me to go for it on a guy that I said was in a relationship. That was kinda fucked up!” You send back.

You walk over to your closet and open the sliding door, pulling out a plastic bin that was shoved into the back for storage several months ago. You pop the lip off easily before you feel your phone go off again, rather quickly.

“Oh that’s easy, I knew you were lying.” She sends your way with a winking emoji.

You gawk at the phone for a few seconds before typing quickly, “Are you for real??”

In a second she comes back, “Of course! Girl I’ve known you for HOW many years?? You think I can’t tell.” then another second goes by before you can even type back and she sends another, “Also I know you gave me some bullshit because you didn’t want me to look him up on Facebook, talking about meeting a mystery guy with a weird name at a funeral, that’s crazy, what’s his name actually?”

You should have known you couldn’t lie to her that easily, it’s not like she’s dumb, but you’re surprised you were figured out that fast still. Then you smirk at the screen at her second message, seeing that you still have a bit of the upper hand here since not even she can guess what’s actually going on with you since it’s so bizarre. But you decide to just concede here because you are honestly not even sure how to explain the truth right now and you’re much too tired to try.

“Yep you got me.. The funeral part actually is true, crazily enough, but his name’s really Lawrence.” You type out and hit send, putting your phone down on the ground real quick.

You kneel down in front of the bin and start to pull out random plastic bags with clothes in them until you find the one you need, tossing it aside and packing the others back up to stow away. You really need to get yourself organized better, but not right now. So you slide the bin back into the nook it came from and stand, closing the closet door as well.

“Wow what a nerd name lol” She types back, and you frown at the screen.

“Nah come on, he’s sensitive about it I think.” You send back in return, opening the plastic bag on the edge of the bed and pulling out the first couple items.

You’re about to set the phone down but you decide to say an early goodnight, because you figure tonight won’t last much longer once he’s finally done in there, which you guess is probably soon since he didn’t want to get wet in the first place.

“Alright I’m gonna go, I’m going to bed early, I’m totally exhausted today.” You type back, about to send another message of goodnight before you quickly get one back.

“Oh, congrats on the sex then!” She sends your way.

You scowl at the screen, “You can fuck right off.” You say, and toss the phone onto your blanket to finish what you’re doing.

You unpack some of the clothes in the bag until you spot a pair of pajama pants with a grey and white plaid pattern, those are the ones you need. You pull those out and set them nearby, then dig further until you see a couple black t-shirts at the bottom of the bag. You pull out the three of them and unfurl each one, they’re wrinkled from being stuffed to the bottom but they aren’t dirty which is good. You hold each one up spread out against the front of yourself, settling on the biggest one of the three, tossing it next to the pants you set aside and beginning to pack the bag back up. You stuff everything else back into the bag haphazardly and then tie the top of it, setting it on the ground next to the closet door before you step back and let yourself fall roughly across the middle of the bed, closing your eyes as you face up at the ceiling.

You sigh deeply as you lay back, and realize that you don’t actually hear the water anymore, which can only be a good sign. You pull your phone back from where it is on the blanket and check the screen, sure enough, your notifications are flooded with an array of emoji from her, some suggestive and some laughing ones. You smile at the screen and swipe them all away, not answering her back for any of them. She’s your best friend, but she does make fun of you pretty mercilessly sometimes, but you guess that’s just par for the course. You sit up and set your phone down now that it’s all cleared off right as you hear the bathroom door open.

You look over and in a giant cloud of steam, Beetlejuice emerges, a black towel wrapped around his waist and being held up by one hand, and his usually poofy hair flattened pretty significantly by the water. His belly and chest are completely out though and he’s quite a bit hairier than you had thought he might be, there are some light purplish marks and a few scratches scattered around on his skin as well which you didn’t notice before anywhere else on him since he’s usually so covered. You stand up then and walk a bit closer, and from what you can see, despite holding a towel in his hands right now he is still literally dripping, and getting water everywhere.

“Aw come on, I have so many towels in there, you gotta get more dry than tha--” You start, stepping up to him.

Then he smirks once you’ve approached, deciding that now is the perfect moment to shake himself off violently like a dog and splash water all over you as well as your room and your floor. You yelp as the droplets hit you and wipe at your face a moment later to get them away. Then you look around and see how he’s gotten the floor wet from himself and his shaking.

You look back up at him with a droopy unimpressed face, “You suck, you know that?”

“Yes I do! It’s revenge, for making me get clean.” He says easily, laughing at your dismay.

You grumble, walking around past him and going to get another towel from the closest rack in your bathroom, as you enter it’s like you’re hit with a wall of steam, everything in the bathroom is fogged and damp. You quickly get out of there, turning the light off behind you.

“Jesus! What did you do in there?” You ask as you come back out, tossing the towel onto him so it covers his head completely. 

He bristles and pulls it down off his face with a huff, “I turned the hot water on at full force for the entire thing.”

You nod, “Oh, I guess that felt good then?”

He looks away, “Maybe..”

You smile, “Ha! I got you, you liked it!” You say confidently, coming around to the front of him and touching a hand to his bare shoulder.

The skin there is actually reasonably warm, probably not as hot and also in pain as a regular person’s would be after bathing in lava like he just did, but it’s a vast improvement from how icy he usually feels.

He blows out a puff of air to try to move a wet strand of his hair off his forehead, “Alright so here I am, wet and naked in all my glory! Are you happy now?” He says, opening his free arm out widely to gesture to himself.

“Very!” You smile brightly at him, before turning around and grabbing the clothes off the bed.

You hear him grunt behind you quietly in response, then you turn back and hold them up to him, “I found these for you! I had them put away because they’re way too big on me and I was planning on donating them whenever I got around to that… but you can have them instead!” You say happily.

He takes them into his free hand and looks down at them, “Not bad, these must be pretty large on you then, if they’re gonna fit me.” He says then.

You shrug, “Well I was comparing them to my other stuff and they are definitely the biggest I have… I’m not sure how they’ll actually fit but I just wanted to have you wear something clean, because I highly doubt that anything you own is.”

He smiles, “That’s true!”

Before he can keep going you blush a bit and start to move away, “Okay so uh.. You can put those on, I’ll just turn aroun--”

“No need.” he says easily, tossing them over his shoulder to free up his left hand and then snapping his fingers so they automatically appear on his body.

The towels go away in the blink of an eye too, and you almost miss it happening from how fast it was, but now he’s dressed. Still definitely damp looking and his hair is sticking up weird from being toweled off, but he looks nice now that he isn’t covered in all sorts of grime. He pats himself a bit and looks down, examining how they fit him. You can tell the pants look a little tight, but the shirt looks like it fits perfectly for sleeping. He turns around halfway and then poses, bending forward away from you.

“Do they make my butt look fat?” He jokes.

You snort, “Oh  _ for sure _ , extra thick!” You joke back, grabbing a hold of his right cheek with one hand and squeezing.

He jumps a bit with a surprised, “Oi!” Then after a short pause he turns back to you, “That’s pretty bold of you babe.”

You giggle quietly, turning away and hopping up onto the side of the bed closest to you, “I know~” You say teasingly.

He steps closer and waits along the edge of the bed, “Okay, time to pay up, where’s this surprise you promised? I’m clean now, so no excuses.”

You grin, “It’s right here, just uh.. “ You pause and point over to the other side of the room in front of your window, “Come around to this side!”

He walks around to the other side of the bed and then looks around on the floor, “There’s nothing here.” He mutters.

You pull your blanket up into your lap more to clear the space next to you, patting the mattress, “No  _ here _ , silly!”

He sits where you are patting and then tilts his head at you, “I don’t understand..”

You sigh, “I’m inviting you into my bed.”

“Oh, like in a sexy way?” He brightens.

You frown, “No! In a.. “ You trail off and look down in thought, “In a ‘graduate up from the couch’ kind of way.” You settle on.

He shifts to face you fully and sit more on the bed instead of letting his legs hang off the edge, “Wait like.. For good?” He asks hesitantly.

You nod, “Yeah, um… this side can be for you.” You say, gesturing to the left side of the bed and the pillow that’s there.

He looks over the space and a small smile starts to form as he does, “Are you sure? Isn’t this where your laptop sleeps...” He asks after a couple seconds in a way that only sounds like it’s half joking.

You sigh gently, “Yes I’m sure bug, I’ve only been thinking about it for, ya know… days. I have a whole double bed here and I only use the right side of it.”

After a moment you keep going, “And that’s not all!” You say brightly.

“There’s more?” he asks excitedly with a grin.

Then before you can answer he cuts in, “Wait don’t tell me… can I eat snacks in the bed?” He says quickly.

You furrow your brows at him, “I would rather you didn’t..”

He lets out a sad “Aww” at that and then you lay down on your side with your upper body propped up your elbow, your other arm open, “Here!” you say happily.

He looks at you up and down and then grins again, “Ah I see, so no  _ snacks _ , but a whole meal!” He says in a low voice, leaning forward and running a hand down your hip slowly.

You roll your eyes at him despite feeling a little warm at the implications of that statement, reaching up and pulling him down easily into a lying position in the bed.

“The second part of the surprise is cuddling.” You say softly, settling up against him easily with you both on your sides.

He holds on to you around the waist with his free arm now that he’s also laying down, “Oh, well I have been told that I give great but not quite master level hugs, so you’re in luck.”

You nestle yourself snugly against his chest and wrap an arm around the middle of him as well, sighing gently into the fabric of your old shirt, “I lied, you do give master level hugs.”

He does a fake little sniffle, “If only my hug sensei could see me now.” He mutters into the top of your head.

You let out a small breathy laugh, closing your eyes, “Mhm.. could you get the lights?”

A second later you know they’re off because the bit of brightness that was there behind your eyelids goes away and you sigh happily. It’s a surprisingly warm embrace still, his skin has definitely started to move back to its natural state of coldness, but the effects of the hot shower are still lingering a bit. He lets go for a second and uses his free hand to pull your blanket over so it’s covering the both of you, then settles back in the way he was. As you’re just breathing up against him while he moves slightly you keep getting hit with this strong scent of lavender, it’s not unwelcome but definitely very different compared to how he used to smell. Eventually you lean back a bit and look at him.

“Which soap of mine did you use in there?” You ask out of curiosity.

He looks up and pauses for a while, “It was uh.. This black bottle, it had silver writing on it?”

“...Was that  _ all  _ you used?” You ask next.

“....Yesss?” He says slowly.

You snort, “You used my shampoo all over your body? It’s supposed to be for just your hair.” You explain.

“Hey, I did say I could use some help. You think I shower often? Or um.. Ever?” He says then.

You smirk at him, “That was just an excuse to try and see me naked.” You say flatly.

He flashes a toothy smile, “Yeah so?”

You sigh, leaning into him and bumping your forehead against his chest, “I hate you.” You mutter softly with not even an ounce of malice in your voice.

“Pfft, liar.” He mumbles back, hugging you tightly against him.

“Whatever~” You respond, looking up again and sticking your tongue out at him.

Just as you bring your tongue back in from poking it out at him you are caught by surprise by him leaning forward to kiss you. It’s quick and soft and you smile against his lips as it happens, pushing back against him just barely in your sleepiness. He pulls away after a moment and you smile warmly at him in the dark.

“I’m so tired..” You whisper.

“Then sleep babygirl, I’ll be here in the morning.” He says softly.

That’s a nice sentiment to think about, and it makes you feel really warm and happy in this new context. You let go of holding around his side in order to gently push his shoulder away from you to get him to lay on his back instead. He follows through with the movement once he realizes what you’re doing, turning and taking some blanket with him as you both move. Once he finishes shifting you huddle yourself up against his side and tangle your leg a bit with his larger ones, laying your head on the little nook between his chest and shoulder. He uses the arm under your head to come and wrap around to hold your back easily, his free hand resting on his own chest a good way from your face.

You hum happily in the new position and use your free arm to hug him gently, “Goodnight my large body pillow demon.” You mumble quietly.

He snickers lightly from above you, “Is that all I am to you, a pillow?” He jokes.

“Hmm..” You sigh in response, already closing your eyes and starting to doze off.

“Ah I see, even too tired for extended banter...” He whispers, mostly to himself.

He slides his free hand down a bit and places it over top yours a second later, sighing above you which you feel as his chest moves. The last thing you hear before completely dozing off is a soft “Goodnight” from him above you, a stark contrast to the rushed and hollow farewell he gave you the previous night as he left.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There you go!! Extra fluffy to sooth your souls, hope that makes up for last time! <33
> 
> I might take a bit to get the next chapter out, I am not done planning it yet so it will probably take longer to come together. With all my chapters lingering around 14k words these days it takes many long hours to get it all done! ^^;;


	15. Familiar

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Long time no post.. Sorry about that, I wasn't intending on going on a bit of a hiatus, but I started to burn out a lot on writing and just in general I was busy with life and stuff.
> 
> I wasn't doing nothing though, just slowly but surely I was making this big chapter for all of you! So thank you so much to those of you that are sticking around, you're all the very best <3  
> (More notes later)
> 
> Enjoy!

For the second day in a row you are rudely awakened by a blaring alarm, but this time also by an uncomfortable coldness that you feel lingering on your skin as you shrink into yourself at the sound. Not a second later though you hear the noise turn off on its own and you sigh in relief, but then frown and peek your eyes open suspiciously. Underneath where your face is resting there is a bit of movement and you look up to see your phone floating in the air above you, a hand hovering out to touch the screen with one finger.

“Huh.. ” You let out in a whisper, tilting your head upwards towards the headboard to be met with a distracted Beetlejuice as he looks forward and taps on your phone screen.

Suddenly the cold feeling all over your exposed skin makes a lot more sense. You didn’t actually move off of him in your sleep, you settled here the night before and dozed off nearly immediately but somehow you were still just expecting your normal pillow like usual this morning despite that. You don’t know how much you usually move around in your sleep but somehow you managed to stay exactly where you started the whole night, nestled right up on his chest. You start to slide off slowly, and bring yourself to a sitting up position instead, now that the alarm has already ruined your sleep even though it was cut short. He looks away from fiddling with your phone in midair to meet your eyes and smile at you.

“Mornin’!” He says easily.

You smile back and wipe at your face sleepily, reaching forward and taking the phone out of the air, only to find yourself looking at the screen of your alarms app. You turn to him with a puzzling look, holding the phone up and gesturing to it.

“What are you trying to do on here?” You question.

He sits up then to match you, “I turned your first alarm off, I was trying to set a new one, I was going to give you like 10 more minutes.”

You bring the phone down to set it in your lap, “Aw, thanks.. I’m okay though, gotta be ready to work and all that.” You shrug.

He frowns, “Yeah, that’s lame though…” He trails off for a bit, pausing, “And you looked so peaceful.” He adds, but quieter.

You smirk, “Ah, now I see, the bed invitation is an even better surprise than I thought, now you can indulge even further in your sleep watching habits.” You say playfully.

He does an over the top shrug like he has no idea what you’re talking about which makes you snicker lightly, then you keep talking, “Also you.. You always say that.” You add more seriously.

He looks at you confused for a moment, “That I look peaceful, I mean.” You explain.

He smiles, “Well cause’ you do! It always looks like you’re getting really good rest.” He says easily.

You hum lightly, “It’s not like that for you I’m guessing?” You ask hesitantly.

He shakes his head, “Not so much, more like just passing the time. I do still have the occasional dream though, but that’s rare.”

You nod slowly as you think it over, finding it really hard to be able to imagine not needing rest, or sleeping without feeling any different when you wake up, even if it’s been many hours. You look down in thought for a good while before glancing back up and as you do you see that he’s leaning forward to you intently. Your eyes go wide for a second as you realize he’s about to kiss you so you block the front of your face with your hand quickly, he taps your palm with his nose in surprise and then looks past the top of your fingers in confusion.

“Am I not allowed to do that whenever? On account of the whole liking each other thing?” He asks in a slightly worried tone.

You bring your hand down and shake your head, “Oh no no.. um, you  _ can _ I just..” You pause a second and then continue a little quieter, “I haven’t brushed my teeth.”

He snorts in amusement at that, “Seriously?”

You lower your eyebrows at him, “Yeah! Hygiene is like, actually important to  _ some _ people.”

He rolls his eyes at you playfully and you cross your arms, you’re not actually mad or anything but you feel like it gets your point across better at least. You hold the position for a few long moments but surprisingly he doesn’t actually try to fight back on that, which you weren’t expecting at all. Usually he’s all about the back and forth banter, so it seems odd that he gave up so easily.

You let your arms fall back down to your lap and then fidget with your fingers awkwardly, before looking back up at him, “So how did you sleep?” You ask to restart conversation.

He turns his attention back to you, “Oh, I didn’t.” He says easily.

“Is the bed not good?” You question, sounding a bit concerned.

“No it’s very soft, felt real good to lay on.” He dismisses with a wave of his hand.

You glance away, “Sorry, then, did I bother you? Jeez, I was laying on you all night wasn’t I…”

He shakes his head, “No no that was fine, it was cute, you drooled on me!” He says with a big grin, pointing to a dark spot on the shirt you gave him. 

You look back at him in embarrassment, about to apologize again when he keeps going, “I just didn’t.. Feel like it.” He says finally, his face dropping into a frown.

You frown a bit yourself, “So.. is something wrong?” You ask hesitantly.

He looks away, “I was just doing a lot of thinking, that’s all.” He explains.

You read the tone and decide to leave it for now, it doesn’t seem like he really wants to talk about it, if something is wrong. Instead you scoot forward from where you’re sitting all wrapped up in blankets and pull him into a quick hug. He slides into it easily and you rub a hand down his back with closed eyes.

“Alright, that’s fine... If something’s the matter though, I’ll listen.” You reassure him gently against his shoulder.

You feel him sag down a bit in the hug and you pull back to look at him again, “Why do you always gotta be so nice to me, you’re making me feel bad.” He says with a gentle laugh, but you aren’t sure if it’s really meant to be a joke or not.

You frown and plant both hands on your hips, “You want me to be mean to you?” You ask, raising an eyebrow at him.

“....No…” He mutters quietly, after a long pause.

You grin in triumph, “Exactly! So get used to it, because I’m nice to people I like, especially my….” You trail off and look at him hesitantly, “Partners?” You phrase as a question.

He quirks an eyebrow at you, “Huh?”

You fidget a bit and ignore the urge to look away, “...So should I like.. call you my  _ boyfriend  _ now, or..?” You ask nervously.

His eyes go wide and he doesn’t fight the urge at all, looking away immediately, “Heh... I dunno that sounds so  _ domestic _ …”

You hum for a second, looking down, “Well then what do I call you?” You ask.

_ Ah, shit, come on. Think... think man, turn this into a joke or something, I can’t have her thinking something is up, it’s first thing in the morning! _

He turns his head back and scratches his chin in thought, “What if you call me your ghoulmate or something…” He suggests, and you can tell pretty easily that he’s messing with you.

You laugh, “If I did, then what would you call me?” You play in return.

He looks up in thought for a moment and then smiles, “What about uhhh… my marshmallow-y mortal.”

You scoff lightly, “And what exactly are you trying to imply about me with that one?” You question.

“You are gentle, and soft… and I want to eat you.” He says easily with a smirk so wide one of his slightly pointed teeth pokes out over his bottom lip.

You feel your face heat up immediately and hide it behind both of your hands, mumbling a short “ohmygod” into your fingers

He laughs cheerily and you take a second to peek out at him, “Are you always like this?”

He barely stops laughing to respond, “Like what?” He asks, putting on an innocent little smile.

You shake your head lightly and uncover your face, “Do you always just  _ blatantly _ come on to people?”

“When they’re pretty yeah.” He replies simply.

You let yourself fall backward gently and lay against your pillow, the one you didn’t bother to use all night, “You’re killin’ me here!” You reply up at the ceiling, only half joking.

He comes over to lean above you with a light snicker, “Hey look, I think I have a pretty good excuse now at least!”

You huff as you look up at him, “And what’s that?”

He smiles, “Cause’ you’re myyyy.. human kissin’ partner?” He draws out.

You sit up and roll your eyes, slapping him lightly on the arm, “Just call me your girlfriend you coward!”

He snickers, “Okay ‘your girlfriend you coward’...” He plays, mimicking the cadence of your voice.

You deflate and turn away from him to swing your legs over your side of the bed, then quickly get up to head off to the bathroom. Leaving the door open beside you as you splash your face with a little cold water and start brushing your teeth. Out on the bed you heard his laughter at your expense die down quickly once you got up and walked away, and sure enough as you’re still brushing you see him poke a head in the doorway to check out what you’re doing. You make eye contact with him in the mirror for a second and then lean down and spit out excess toothpaste, rinsing your toothbrush off thoroughly and then cupping some water in your hands to rinse your mouth out further. Once you’re done with that you dry your face off on the small towel hanging right next to the sink, then turn and look at him directly.

“You need anything or are you just watching me get ready for fun?” You ask, stepping towards him so you can try to get out the doorway back into the bedroom.

You slide past him and he tries to scoot back just a bit too late to let you through the space easier, “Uh.. just for fun!” He gets out awkwardly as he moves.

You hunch down at the front of your dresser, opening a drawer that’s lower down and looking for something slightly presentable to wear while you work at your computer today. You really don’t have any reason to not just keep wearing your pajamas but something about it feels wrong since someone else is here with you. Although you do seriously doubt that Beetlejuice would have any problem with you continuing to wear comfy pants with a donut print on them, you also mostly want to change for yourself, so it feels like you’re actually working and not just lounging at home.

You notice him staring at you from over near the bathroom door as you pull some clothes out, then standing up straight and looking over to him.

You make eye contact for a second and then shift your eyes down to the clothes in your hand, “Um I.. I’m gonna change, can you..?” You start.

“Right! Yep.. absolutely, here I go.” He cuts you off, turning all the way around and looking directly at the blank wall of your bedroom.

You smile to yourself at his reaction, he does manage to sound both strange and nervous at the same time, but it’s kind of welcome because you figured you were gonna have to fight him to let you change in peace. Based on his usual blatant and really forward behavior, you just assumed he would make some remark about getting to see you undress and then bother you for several minutes, but nope, he’s actually kind of being respectful which is really suspicious now that you think of it. As you’re sliding your shirt off to get a bra on he starts talking to you, but still very firmly directed at the wall.

“Man, what color is this? Do boring people call this off-white, or is it more like a grey? Truly fascinating stuff this wall is. I wonder what the fancy color name the store gave it was, probably something really pretentious…” He trails off as you snicker lightly behind him, at his attempts to keep busy while looking away.

“Say uh… Babe..” He comes back, his voice a bit smaller.

You give a short “Hmm?” in response, willing him to keep talking as you get a pair of grey shorts on, a cross between something that is considered normal clothes and is also comfortable.

“You’re not like.. Legit upset are you?” He gets out, sounding nervous again, and you frown without looking over.

“Huh… no? Why would I be?” You ask in return, putting some deodorant on while your shirt is still off.

“Well cause’ I was messing with you before and all that…” He explains.

You snort, “No it’s fine, that was all in good fun, right?” You question before bringing your new shirt up over your head.

He turns back around then, just a bit too early as you haven’t had a chance to pull your shirt all the way down yet. You aren’t exactly sure but he may have caught a glimpse of the bra you choose and your exposed stomach. You turn towards him now and he’s looking at you intently and takes quite a bit longer to reply which makes you think he definitely saw it, so you avert your eyes, waiting for some dumb joke about your color choice in a boob-holder or whatever dumb thing he’s going to say.

“Yeah it was... I’m just trying to make sure.” He says gently, sounding rather genuine and looking at you expectantly.

You squint at him for a few moments and then smile sympathetically, “Don’t worry, just cause’ I got mad at you for real one time doesn’t mean it’s gonna be every day, I know you like to joke, I’m not  _ that  _ sensitive.”

He heaves a heavy sigh of relief, “Oh thank god. That’s good.. I was worried you’d want me to stop fuckin’ around.”

You laugh, “Of course not! That’s like, your whole thing. Although…from what I’ve seen you do mess with people pretty mercilessly.. are you saying I don’t get  _ any  _ special treatment?” You step closer and ask, looking up at him with a small smile, waiting.

He smirks, “I guess I can be... A little  _ tiny _ bit less of an asshole, y’know, just a smidge, for you.”

Your smile wavers begrudgingly, “Aww, for me? How sweet of you~” You mock.

He grumbles lightly at the compliment as joking as it was from where he’s standing so you come all the way up to him now and make a show of tilting your head to the side to look back at the blank wall he was commenting on before.

“Hey um.. What’s that?” You ask slowly, pointing behind him.

He glances that way and starts to turn, “What’s wh--” But you cut him off quickly by giving him a very fast kiss on the cheek once he turns his head and then walking past him to grab your phone off the nightstand before he can react.

He stands there for a second and rubs his hand on his face, “Damn I fell for that? Maybe I'm getting too soft..” He mutters mostly to himself.

“Shit.” You say under your breath, looking at the time and your email notifications.

He comes over to you then and looks over your shoulder, “Something up?”

You sigh, “I just realized that I need to get on there like  _ now _ , and I haven’t even finished what I have to do in the morning before starting to work.” You say with a frown.

He scratches his chin and looks you over, “Well you look pretty clean to me, what are you missin’?”

“Well food, for one..” You point out, lowering the phone down and slipping it into your pocket as you click the power button to turn the screen off.

He nods in understanding, “That’s an important one, people need to eat.” He states as if you don’t already know.

You roll your eyes at his response, then look down in thought for a bit. You definitely spent too long messing around and talking rather than getting ready, because even though you got up on time you wasted most of it because all you managed to get done was freshening up and changing. Usually you at least have enough time to get food and lounge around as you eat it before you run out of time, that is something you’re gonna need to keep in mind for the next couple mornings until the office opens back up. It probably will be up and running by the end of the week, or at least next Monday based on what you’ve been hearing from your co-workers, but for today maybe you can just eat cereal again except this time do it at your desk as you type.

“I’ll just pour a quick bowl and then get started…” You think, looking up to see Beetlejuice several feet away, starting to walk out of your room.

“Oh um.. Where are you off to?” You ask, starting to follow behind him.

He stops in your doorway and turns, “To the kitchen, where else?” He says evenly.

You quirk a brow at him, “What for?”

He looks confused, “I’m gonna get you some food so you can go work.” He says.

Your eyes go wide, “Oh! Wait no, you don’t have to do that--” You start.

He blows a raspberry in the air to cut you off, “Nope, get on your computer, I’m making you breakfast.” He replies then quickly turns, starting to walk away and not letting you keep going at all.

You huff and start to walk over to your desk as you both leave the bedroom, but he keeps talking as he walks away, “I won’t burn your kitchen down, don’t worry!”

“I sure hope not! Try not to make a huge mess either! Keep our kitchen roughly the way it was before you started, please?” You call, as you pull out the chair to your desk.

He pauses at the archway and looks behind him, “Our?”

You turn to him and he looks nervous but a bit hopeful so you nod happily, “Yeah, welcome to the big scary world of  _ sharing _ !” You punctuate the sentence by holding your hands up and curling your fingers forward as if they were scary claws.

He chuckles lightly, “I’m terrified.” He says as he slips into the next room and past where you can see him.

You shake your head at that, it sounded joking enough so you assume he’s just messing with you again. You get settled into your chair and open your laptop, signing in quickly and then waiting a few moments for the programs you double clicked to start running. As they do you open your email and see that you have several open threads that are waiting on your reply, including one with your boss. You just sigh and get started on those since answering emails will probably continue to be an ongoing process all day requiring you to keep checking back often. 

You hear a distant racket in the kitchen but you let yourself ignore it, knowing that despite the fact that he is very messy and also not the most graceful at times, he can easily fix things if they get out of hand in there. You just hope nothing too bad goes wrong if it does, because you saw him make pancakes one time but that’s not enough to give you complete faith in his cooking ability. You smile to yourself as you type, because even if it does end up making a mess it is pretty nice that you can get started on the day and not have to worry about cooking something for once. Any other day when you didn’t have time, or were too lazy, your go to option was cereal or something to microwave, so this is a welcome change. Although it does seem a little odd that he suddenly wanted to make food for you, and he shut you down immediately when you tried to say he didn’t have to do it. He usually isn’t the type to want to do any kind of extra work, unless there is something in it for him, but other than also eating the food he makes you can’t think of any obvious benefit to drive him to want to cook so abruptly.

Some time passes as the keyboard on your laptop clacks with each newly typed email and you almost don’t notice it when he eventually walks back out of the kitchen and comes over to your desk. You stop typing to look up at him and see that he is carrying one plate and one bowl, he sets the plate down on the free spot to the left of your computer but keeps holding the bowl, which seems to just have several pieces of plain toast and nothing else. Meanwhile you turn and inspect the plate he set out next to you and see that there is a pile of scrambled eggs with two pieces of toast, the eggs having a long spiral shape drawn on them using hot sauce and some black pepper sprinkled around. That’s exactly how you like to make them for yourself, and you only recall making them around him once, so that’s pretty surprising. Although copying things he’s seen others do must come easy after spending so long only being able to watch people and nothing else.

You turn back to him then to see him looking at you expectantly, “You made me eggs!”

He nods, “Yeah uh.. Are those good? Did I do it right?”

You smile brightly, “Yeah they look great, thanks so much!” You wait for him a second and he smiles back before you continue, “Why do you just have a bowl of toast?” You question.

“I like the crunch.” He says easily.

You lower your eyebrows at him, “You are… very weird.”

He laughs, “And you’re just learning that now?”

You just shake your head and take a bite of the eggs after mixing up the hot sauce some, “Oh you made them with cheese?”

He looks back to you from paying attention to his bowl, “uh.. Yeah I did, that’s fine right?” He questions.

“Yeah that’s okay, I always have emergency cheese in the fridge.” You explain, eating a bit more.

“What emergency do you need it for?” He asks with a raise of his eyebrow.

“I need it for those times at 3am when you eat it straight out of the bag while questioning all your life choices.” You admit, laughing a bit to play it off.

“Ah I see, the existential crisis of man.” He says knowingly, before quickly continuing, “Then you may need to buy more.. I kind of used a shit load.”

You look down and pull at the scramble with your fork, noticing how gooey the eggs are and the many cheese strands that connect the eggs you’re pulling away from the main pile. He really did use a lot of it, you didn’t notice too much in the first couple bites but visually they look much different from a normal scramble now that you’re paying attention.

“Damn, okay, maybe grocery store again this week, because I am also running out of some other stuff too.” You say with a frown.

“Oh, sounds fun!” He says lightly, then looks away and takes a step back, “Alright.. I guess I will uh…”

He turns like he’s gonna walk away so you reach out and grab hold of his sleeve and look up, “No why don’t you um.. Stay here, let’s look at video or something.”

“What about working?” He asks after a moment, turning back to you.

You look back at the screen and hover your cursor over the tab of your email for a couple seconds, then bring up Youtube instead of checking your inbox again.

“What they don’t know won’t hurt ‘em, a little video won’t take away too much of my time. Just something while we eat.” You explain, scrolling down the website and highlighting a video, “Here you’ll like this one I think--”

“Oh fuck, I  _ hate _ that guy!” He pipes up, pointing past you at the screen.

You look at him in confusion, “Wait.. you know who Zak Bagans is?”

“Yeah he’s that cocky ghost hunter dude on TV, he sucks.” He grumbles, biting into a hard piece of toast with a loud crunching sound.

You snort, “That’s amazing, you must have snooped on a lot of people’s TV habits.”

“Mhmm.. it really helped pass the time.” He says, looking down at the bowl instead of the screen.

“Well then I still think you’ll like this, it’s a compilation of all the times he gets freaked out or scared.” You explain with a smile, opening the page.

“Awesome.” He says with a toothy smile of his own, taking another large bite of his dry toast and letting crumbs fall all over.

“Oh uh, you should get a--” But you cut your self off as you are about to suggest he get chair, looking down to see that he is just floating in the air crossing his legs and making the bowl hover nearby.

You shake your head and start the video, repositioning your legs to hold your plate in your lap and eat. There is a little sequence at the beginning about the channel and then the actual clips start playing.

You recite the intro in a mocking voice along with it as it plays, “I never believed in  _ ghosts _ until I came face to face with one!” Turning and raising your eyebrows at Beetlejuice for emphasis.

He cracks up loudly next to you so you pause it a second, “So this is the crap you watch huh?”

You smile bashfully, “Yeah kinda, honestly I only would watch these guys cause’ it was always funny to see them mess up and get scared.”

He grins, floating closer and putting an arm around your shoulders, then turning to look at the screen, “Ah, a woman after my own heart. I  _ too _ love to watch people get scared, but I usually do it myself at least.”

You hum in understanding then unpause the video, grabbing hold of your fork to continue eating before it starts to get cold. Other than the crunching sounds coming from your left you enjoy watching the video with him. You both laugh when Zak yells on screen, make fun of the crew, and Beetlejuice keeps pointing out when things are fake. He actually gives some helpful insight on the ghost detecting equipment they use, like which ones are real and which ones don’t do anything and are just for looks, most of them being the latter. The time kind of flies by until the video ends and you look down to see you only have one big bite or maybe two small bites left. You frown to yourself and go to finish the food, you wish you didn’t have to work today. A moment later he takes the empty plate from you once you finish the last bite, making both the bowl and your plate go away, you just hope it’s actually in the kitchen.

“...You just gonna frown at the air forever?” He asks quietly after watching you do nothing but stare at the wood pattern on the desk for way too long.

You come up from staring and look at him instead, “Oh…” You sigh, “I just really don’t want to do this.” You say, gesturing to the screen.

“Well then don’t. Isn’t there a thing where they let you call in sick or something, at jobs?” He asks, coming down from floating to stand on the floor again.

“Probably but how can I call in sick from my own house? I’m sure Mr. Asshole Johnson wouldn’t give a shit, he would just tell me to work through it or whatever. And I’m not looking for an excuse to have to call him either.” You explain with a heavy sigh.

He hums in thought, “Well then, lie in a different way! Make another excuse.” He suggests.

You shake your head, “Hmm, No...I should just get back to it, it’ll be over sooner if I just zone out and get it done.”

“You sure? You… always just look so worn out when it comes to this shit.” He furrows his eyebrows at you and asks.

You turn back to the screen and close Youtube, “Yeah, just wish my battery wasn’t this dead already, it’s so early in the week.”

“Sounds like you need an  _ outlet _ !” He says suddenly with a lot more energy.

You turn back to him and see him swinging a disconnected cable with an empty plug at the end, “Oh my god--” You laugh loudly, covering your mouth, “Please don’t try to connect me to a wall.”

“Damn. That was my only solution.” He mutters.

You crack a small smile at him, “If you’re interested in recharging my metaphorical battery I’m sure a hug will do just fine.” You say.

He smirks, “Pfft, is that all?” 

“Hey I’m a simple woman, I get a good hug, and I’m happy.” You tut, shrugging at him.

“Well, come’ere.” He offers.

He’s just a step away and you only have a little bit of room between your chair and where he’s standing so you roll backwards in order to stand up fully and pull him forward into a hug. He’s a little on the shorter side compared to a normal human guy, even though he isn’t one, so you’re only a bit lower down than he is, the perfect height to wrap your arms around his middle with his arms resting over the top of yours. You lean against his shoulder and sigh, squeezing around him further and feeling him do the same to your waist. You want to hold on longer but suddenly you feel a hand on you that’s further down your hip, kind of close to your butt, except his hands didn’t move at all. You pull back just enough to look down at your left side and gasp, jumping in his grip.

“Um.. excuse me?!” You exclaim, staring down to see a third arm coming out of his side and also holding onto you.

“...What?” He asks, like nothing strange is happening, and you just gawk at him.

He laughs, strumming the fingers of his extra hand against your hip, “Oh, did I not show you before?”

“No! No you didn’t!” You say loudly, not mad but very shocked.

He just snickers at your response, pulling you back in and holding on tightly with all three hands, then looks down at you smugly. But you have just enough leeway to come up higher and quickly kiss the expression right off of him. You can tell he’s surprised by how sudden it is but he doesn’t pull away, instead he leans forward and kisses you back in earnest. You feel his hands move over your waist a little as you kiss, doing slow thumb swirling motions against your skin that threaten to make you ticklish since it’s happening in three places at once. You ignore the urge to bat his hands away at the feeling just long enough for him to break away and pull back, but not going very far because then he taps his forehead against yours and keeps it there.

“Alright, you should.. Go on and, copy your numbers or whatever dumb shit you gotta do.” He mumbles, still close to your face.

You feel the third hand of his leave you completely and after a few moments it doesn’t return, so you take a guess that the next time you look down it will probably be gone entirely. Although you aren’t going to check right now since you’re too busy just staring ahead at him, breathing slowly and not making any move to turn back to your computer.

“Yeah... Maybe, I should....” You get out after a bit, trailing off, but you still don’t turn to leave and instead you make no effort to stop yourself from glancing away from his eyes down at his lips.

You hum for a second, “Maybe… just  _ one more _ though.” You mumble quietly, sliding your arms out from around him to reach up and hold around his neck instead.

You pull yourself forward the short distance to reach him and join your lips in another kiss, this time he doesn’t seem surprised at all, he just hums lightly against you. His lips are still pretty cold and they feel chapped compared to yours but you ignore it and just savor the closeness anyway. His body is starting to feel just a little bit warmer to the touch as you’ve been pressed against him for this long. You shift him forward slightly so he’s standing straight up instead of bending forward to you, and you come up on your toes to accommodate the slightly different angel. As you move you break away by accident for only a second but then rejoin to kiss him again only a bit more forcefully this time, taking a second to card your fingers through the hair on the side of his hair lightly as you do. He makes a low noise in his throat against your lips at that and you feel one of his hands roam downwards a little to hold onto your butt instead of your hip.

You decide to let him for now, just sliding your hand down from his hair past his ear to rest on the side of his face. But then his lips move some and you feel the gentle prod of his tongue against you. You peek an eye open slightly but he isn’t looking at you, his eyes are closed and he’s completely concentrated, so you close your lips tighter to deny access and make a little warning sound to hopefully let him know you don’t want to deepen the kiss right now. He seems to get it thankfully and stops trying after that, you smile against him and hum contently, enjoying the moment a little longer in this position before eventually pulling back and letting go of his cheek. You lower down from being on your toes and just look up at him, feeling flushed and warm and like maybe this wasn’t the best idea to do when you’re supposed to be working. But he’s got a real nice mixture of a few different shades of pink in his hair and his eyes are a little droopy and he’s looking about as shaken as you probably look right now, so you would call that worth it for sure.

He starts to talk first, sounding a little breathy even though he doesn’t need to breathe, “Wow Darlin’.. You must really like me a lot.” He says with the smallest laugh, letting his hands slip from you finally.

You clear your throat gently, “Sorry, did I not make that clear enough?” You ask playfully, smirking up at him.

“Oh, no, it’s pretty damn clear.” He says warmly, averting his eyes but a little smile tugging at his lips nonetheless.

You smile back, but pause and glance behind you to see your open inbox on the screen instead of replying. Letting out another small sigh because you can already see a few new ones waiting for you. You turn back to him and see that he has taken a few steps away, but he makes eye contact again when you move back towards him after frowning at your computer.

“You should get that work done… I will just uh, go think some cold and unsexy thoughts over here.” He says, scratching behind his head and awkwardly pointing near the couch.

You snicker at his expense, “Okay… Good luck with that then!” You watch him turn and go over there after that, falling ungracefully onto the couch with a light groan.

You smile to yourself and get back on your computer, opening up your binder of data and replying to the most important email first before heading over to the land of spreadsheets. You feel a little bad, for maybe doing too much randomly in the living room like that, but it was definitely fun and your battery is topped off for now if that metaphor even still stands. You assume he also had fun based on his reaction and also the hair color changing, which really is handy for you now that you’ve learned what most of the colors mean. You hope he doesn’t take it too personally that you check it often, because you’re sure he notices you look up past his eyes all the time.

_ Why am I hiding on the couch right now? I should be doing something about this. What is wrong with me? Maybe I should get out of the house while she works, do anything, keep busy. But I always take too long getting back and… holy shit, wait. Something is definitely wrong with me. I… don’t even really feel like messing with people. What is this! The prospect of ruining someone’s day always helps, am I going crazy? _

You hear another groan from behind you where he is and you stop typing to look back. You can’t see him at all, you can just spot a single socked foot sticking out at the end of the left side of the couch, and a cushion on the floor. 

“Is he alright over there?” You wonder to yourself.

You jump in your seat as your phone suddenly starts to vibrate loudly on the desk, you turn back and look over only to scowl at the screen. Is someone in the other department really trying to call you on your personal number because you haven’t answered them yet in one of their five different emails? These people are hopeless.

. . .

Time passes pretty quickly once you get in the zone. The flood of emails starts to die down as the morning becomes the afternoon and despite having more to do now that you’re at home you are actually making decent time with the speed at which you get through the pages of your binder. Even though you spent a little bit of the morning fooling around with Beetlejuice instead of working you should have no problem meeting your daily quota. Speaking of him, much to your surprise he has actually let you work in peace for a majority of the morning. Doing what seems to be nothing for most of it and only once turning the TV up way too loud. But other than that he hasn’t come over to interrupt much at all. After a few hours now it’s starting to make you really suspicious, because that doesn’t seem like him in the slightest.

You finish the line you are typing and check the clock, seeing that your usual lunch break would be starting soon. You don’t have to clock it in like you would normally since you aren’t in the office, luckily there is leniency with that right now at least and you can just eat when you need to. But right now you actually want to get off the computer a little earlier, not for food, but to check on him, because you just have a gut feeling you should. You stand up and roll your chair away, walking over to the back of the couch and peering over it at him. He’s laying on his back, slightly propped up against the armrest of the couch and facing the ceiling. His eyes are closed and the TV is going quietly nearby, but he isn’t asleep, he’s just laying back chewing on one of his blackened nails gently.

“Um… Bug?” You mutter, leaning forward and poking a finger at his shoulder. 

He opens his eyes to look up at you immediately as your finger reaches the fabric of his shirt, lowering his hand down from his mouth, “Yeah? Is work done?” He asks.

You shake your head, “No, I might take my lunch break early though. Are you…” You trail off, just looking at him with a furrowed brow.

He sits up and tilts his head at you, “Are you okay?” You finally ask.

He hesitates but then a small smile comes to him after a moment and he hovers up off of the couch in one fluid motion to stand nearby, “Never better!”

Then after you walk around to stand near him and frown he continues, “Why, whats up?”

You rub your arm with your opposite hand, “I dunno, you just… haven’t come over at all while I was on my computer and I have this feeling that you’re upset? Maybe I’m just making things up, sorry.”

He looks away and seems slightly guilty, “Um, well…” He trails off and pauses for a little too long, enough time that you think he’s going to tell you something important.

But then looks back to you and doesn’t, “Did you  _ want  _ me to come bother you?”

You lower your eyebrows at him, “Well, not  _ exactly _ , it’s just not like you to... Not try?” You shrug.

He nods solemnly, then steps forward and takes your hand, quickly walking back across the room to your desk and leading you there beside him. You just look over to him confused as he does, not really getting what his plan is here. Once you’re back by your desk he motions for you to sit, so you do, rolling forward so the chair is aligned with where your computer is again and looking up at him puzzled.

“Ah, perfect, now I can activate my annoying mode.” He says with a grin.

You scowl at him, “That’s just your default!”

He leans against the wood of your desk with one hand and smirks down at you, “Go ahead, type something!” He pushes, pointing down at the keyboard.

You frown and turn to the computer, hesitating for a few seconds before using the mouse to click open a blank new tab. Nothing happens, even after you glance up at him and wait a while, so you reach forward slowly and go to press the enter key but right as your finger is going to make contact suddenly there is a strong breeze from right where he is. Your rolling chair starts spinning you around rapidly on its own, whipping your hand away from the keyboard. You roll off to the right away from the desk a little and keep spinning, not so fast that you’ll fall out of the chair or anything, but even putting your foot down on the ground doesn’t make it stop. You curse at him as the chair keeps going and eventually you do slow to a stop but not from your own efforts, and then you’re facing the window beside the desk instead of forward after all those quick rotations.

You’re a little dizzy but after getting your hair out from in front of your eyes you manage to stand up again from the chair without wobbling too much, “You suck you know that!” You exclaim, not turning back around to face him.

He cackles brightly behind you, which does actually make you smile to yourself where he can’t see you, because at least he’s acting normal again after being unlike himself most of the morning. You were starting to worry there for a bit, he just seemed really off in a way that was hard to put your finger on, but maybe you were wrong about that after all. Then something out the window catches your eye for a second and you step forward to move the curtains and look at what’s going on.

“Hey can you blame me? You basically asked me to mess with you!” He gets out while laughing.

You gasp loudly, as you lean up against the glass and look off to the left, “Oh my god!”

“What?” He asks, coming up beside you then.

You scurry off around him without answering as he turns and watches you move, going to the coat rack near the door and hustling into a light zip up jacket. You also take a second to slip on a pair of sandals near the door that you use when you have to get the mail. You pull open the front door and then lean around it to look at him.

“Just a second, sorry!” You tell him, seeing him look at you confused before going out the door quickly.

You let the door close behind you gently and then walk down the path from your house at a brisk pace, turning and waving as you start to head to the left. Up to where Joan used to live in her quaint little yellow house. Margaret is there standing nearby a large moving truck that is parked out front of the house and turns to see you as you wave at her, smiling as she begins to walk towards you as well. You two meet in the middle just a bit before the walkway up to Joan’s house. Even though she is gone, it’s hard to think of that place as anything other than her home.

“Oh Y/N! What a pleasant surprise!” She says warmly, offering you a hug as you get up to her.

You take it and give her a light squeeze, pulling back after a second, “I can say the same about you! I just happened to be looking out the window and I saw you coming out of the truck.”

She nods, “Yes, Henry and I are here to collect some of Joan’s things, many of which are finally ready to be given away in the family.”

You nod slowly, averting your eyes and thinking hard for a moment before remembering that Henry is Joan’s son’s name. You haven’t actually met him properly yet, you just saw him once while you were at the funeral briefly. Very briefly. Other than that the only things you know about him were the things you heard from his mother.

Margaret continues after a bit, “I wasn’t expecting to see you here in the middle of the day, don’t you work across town?”

You look back at her then, “Oh! Yes, well, usually I am. But… I am working from home for a couple days while the office is closed.” You explain.

She frowns, “Oh dear, why did it close down, is everything alright?” She questions.

You reach up and rub the side of your neck, “Yes, it should be… soon. There was just, well, a bug problem.” You admit, not exactly lying but definitely leaving quite a bit out.

She shakes her head, “How dreadful, let’s hope none of those nasty things followed you home then!”

You laugh nervously, “Yeah, let’s hope!”

She laughs with you for a moment, probably to be polite because you didn’t really make a joke. But as you’re looking ahead at her you see her gaze leave you to begin looking off to the left, past you down the sidewalk. You see her raise her eyebrows at something and just as you’re about to turn to see what she’s looking at you hear a very familiar raspy voice at your side.

“Hi!” Beetlejuice says casually from beside you.

“Oh, um… Hello..?” She hesitates.

“What the hell is he doing out here!” You scream in your head, not able to say anything out loud.

You look over at him and see that he’s changed into the outfit he had for that day you both went on a walk, a large hoodie, a pair of sweatpants, and sneakers. Luckily he remembered the hat too because his hair is put away at least. But you specifically said the low key disguise idea was to make him look human enough, from afar, he is very much not far away right now he is standing right next to Margaret, and you. His skin is still too pale and from up close you can definitely see the little patches and speckles of green on him and the deep purple-y areas around his eyes and every other little detail that doesn’t look normal on a human. And all at once it dawns on you that you’ve been staring at him with wide eyes for probably much too long. You whip your head back to look at her instead and see that she’s looking at you expectantly, and that’s when you realize that she most definitely saw him come out of your house.

You gulp, “Uh, yes, let me introduce you…” You start, gesturing to him and feeling like your hands are obviously shaking.

“I’m her boyfriend!” He cuts in happily, putting an arm around you and grinning.

You look between his face and hers, nodding quickly, “Yep! My.. my boyfriend.” You stutter.

Margaret smiles warmly, “Aw, how sweet. What’s your name son?” She looks at him and asks.

You’re about to cut in but he answers instead, “Son? I’m  _ much _ older than you.” He says, putting his free hand on his hip.

You feel like you’re going to pass out but then she starts laughing instead, holding a hand over her mouth politely, “What a charmer, I can see why you like him Y/N.”

You laugh too but it comes out dry and hollow, “Yeah… A real charmer.” You mumble.

He holds his hand out to her, “I’m BJ, super awesome to meet you. Also who are you?”

She smiles, taking his hand, “I’m Margaret, I’m sure Y/N has told yo-- Oh wow, your hands are very cold.” She starts but then cuts herself off, pulling her hand away quickly after giving half of a handshake.

You nudge him roughly with your elbow, laughing nervously, “What did I tell you about cleaning out the freezer with your bare hands,  _ dear _ ?” You ask him pointedly.

He jumps a bit at the nudge, grinning, “Heh, well you know how much I like to eat the scraped up ice, _ honey _ .” He matches your tone.

Margaret simply laughs quietly again, “How silly, you two are very cute together. How long have you both been together?” She asks, swaying and changing her stance to look between you both. 

“Oh, like a day--” He starts.

But you cut in, “It sure feels that way sometimes doesn’t it! It’s been.. A couple weeks.” You try to play it off, because only a day sounds ridiculous even though it’s actually true.

She smiles and nods, “Time sure does fly these days doesn’t it?”

He laughs even though that definitely wasn’t meant to be a joke on her part. You sigh, thinking maybe the questions are done and you can hurry him back inside now or at least talk about something that isn’t the both of you for a second. You shrug his arm off of your shoulders and you’re about to turn and make an excuse to get back inside so you can say your goodbyes but she continues right as you’re going to start talking.

“So, how did you two meet?” She asks then.

“Work.” He says immediately.

“College.” You say at the same time as him.

You both look at each other and then back to her and she gives you a confused stare in return.

“He, uh, he worked at my college!” You stutter out in a panic.

“I was a janitor!” He pipes up, with a big grin.

She clasps her hands together, “Well that’s very honest work! I didn’t realize they let students apply for a job like that while on campus.”

“Students…?” He mutters, tilting his head at her.

She nods, “Well yes, I assume you both studied together?”

You smile hesitantly, “Uh, yes, we both did.. Communications.” You lie, trying to make this story seem at least a little believable.

“But I dropped out! To pursue my real dream…” He says dramatically, clenching his fist and looking down at the sidewalk suddenly.

There goes that passing out feeling again, but Margaret just raises her eyebrows at him, “What dream?” She questions genuinely, leaning forward a bit.

“Joining the circus.” He says in a completely serious tone.

You just gawk up at him in horror, and you don’t know if she catches it or not but he gives you a little teasing side eye after he says it. This is terrible, she's gonna think you’re completely deranged and so is he. But at least for the most part she doesn’t seem suspicious of him, as much as you can tell?

She taps her chin thoughtfully, “Well, that does explain your odd choice in makeup!”

You let out a sigh of relief, you can’t believe this is actually working. Before any of you can say something again Henry comes bounding up from the back of the truck, pushing some of his blonde hair out of his face and putting a hand on Margaret’s shoulder.

“Hey Auntie, I got all the cables set up so we can grab the big pieces first-- Oh, who are these people?” He starts to tell her, getting caught off guard by the two of you.

Margaret steps over to let Henry come forward slightly, “Oh, Henry this is one of your mother’s friends, her neighbor Y/N, you might remember her from the funeral? And this is her boyfriend, BJ.”

He grins, “Oh yes! I remember now, I saw you for just a second as you were running off!” He says easily.

You bristle from remembering that day, you shoot Beetlejuice a look before turning back to Henry, “Yes, sorry, that was me! What a bad first impression…” You trail off.

He laughs, “Oh nonsense, any friend of my mom’s can be a friend of mine, come here!” He says happily, stepping forward and offering you a hug.

He pulls you in before you can even think about whether you want to hug him back or not, so you hug him lightly in return just to be polite. He’s very tall, taller than you by a lot and also taller than Beetlejuice. You give him a hesitant pat on the back and then let go quickly, frowning to yourself and being caught off guard by the sudden hug.

_ What the fuck. _

“You too my man, good to meet yo--” He starts to say to Beetlejuice, stepping forward and offering him a hug as well.

He stops Henry with a single pointer finger against the chest though, stepping back, “No thanks.” He scowls at him.

Henry looks confused and then steps away, back to Margaret’s side, “Alright, uh, sorry..” He mutters.

You link your arm with Beetlejuice, stepping closer to him, “We should be getting back inside now!” You take this as a chance to get out of this situation.

Margaret turns back from looking at Henry, “Oh, so soon?” She asks.

You nod, “Um.. yeah, we should uh..” You start to say hesitantly.

Margaret shuffles Henry back towards the truck and he slinks away without saying anything, “I was just going to ask if you’d be willing to help. We have a lot of things to get into the truck and any extra sets of hands would be greatly appreciated.” She explains, smiling and waiting for your reply.

You feel nervous and like you don’t know how to answer, but then she cuts in again, “At the very least, if you need to keep working, could we borrow BJ for the afternoon? He looks like a strong young man.” She asks, more towards him than to you.

He laughs, holding a hand over his stomach, “Yeah, real strong huh?” he replies, gesturing to the extra weight around his middle.

Margaret waves her hand at him, “Oh hush, a little extra tummy doesn’t mean you can’t lift up big furniture! Look at those arms!” She points out, putting her hands on her hips.

You snicker at her, she’s talking to him like you imagine her talking to her own children. He laughs too, absent-mindedly scratching the back of his head through the hat. As the fabric moves you spy a little peek at his hair and see that it looks brighter than usual. You smile at him, and turn back to her.

“We’ll both help you!” You say happily, leaning over and patting him on the chest with your free hand.

“We will?” He questions, looking at you.

“Oh you will?” She asks too at the same time, making you snicker at how in sync it was.

“Yes, let me just go get some real shoes on and we’ll be right back out!” You say, gesturing down to your feet.

Margaret nods and lets you know that she’ll be waiting in the house and that the doors will be kept open as they move things into the truck, so you both can just come on over when you’re ready. You thank her for the nice conversation, say goodbye for now, and head back in. You hold Beetlejuice’s arm all the way up to the front door of your house before stepping back in and closing it behind the both of you. You slump back against the wood and sigh heavily as he snickers nearby.

You whip your head up when you hear him and stare him down, “What the hell was all that out there!” You yell.

He shrugs with a little grin, “What do you mean?”

You walk up to him and poke a finger at his chest, “You know damn well what I mean. Why’d you follow me out there?”

He scratches the side of his face lightly, “Well you did  _ ask me _ to bother you, so I mean..” He plays.

You grumble angrily, “You know that’s not what I meant. Go back to not bothering me!” You say, crossing your arms.

He laughs, “No can do babes, annoying mode is on in full force.”

You sigh, rubbing a hand down your face, then looking back up to him, “Did you really have to mention the circus though?”

He grins, “Well yeah, if I’m trying to pose as human I need to have a convincing enough tragic backstory right?”

“No! That’s not a real thing!” You exclaim.

He shakes his head, “You just don’t get character driven story telling, what a shame.”

You groan, leaning forward and planting your forehead against his chest and staying there, looking down at the floor in defeat. He pats the top of your head lightly and laughs, but then a moment or two later he uses a hand on your shoulder to push you back gently in order to look at you again.

“But I’m not the only one who made that bad, what about you? Why did you volunteer us to help? Or more importantly, me, I don’t want to move furniture.” He asks, frowning at you.

You frown back, “Well come on now, it’s only right don’t you think?”

He shakes his head in confusion, “Um no, I don’t owe them anything.”

You sigh, “Well yeah, but I completely disrupted the funeral for their family member, my friend, and it’s because of you!”

His eyes go wide, “Oh.. it was _ that  _ funeral?”

“Yes it was that one! What other funeral do you think we were talking about out there?” You ask in frustration.

He shrugs, “Hey look I dunno, you could have been to another one at some point.”

You sigh, shaking your head, “Either way, I feel like I owe it to them at least, and I would like it if you helped to. She’s right ya know, you’re really strong.” You point out.

He smiles, “You think so?”

You smile back at him, nodding, “Yeah duh, remember all those times I complimented your hugging skills?”

He laughs, and you keep going, “Plus I saw you, Mr. bright hair, you had fun talking to her too!”

He pulls the hat down further, “Hey no fair, when I’m a normal human guy you can’t cheat and look at my hair!”

You smirk, “Yeah but you’re _ not _ a normal human guy, you’re just a mediocre actor.”

He gasps loudly, “I have never been more offended in my non-life.” He insists dramatically, holding a hand to his chest.

You laugh and walk past him with a wave of your hand, “Oh too bad, you’ll just have to get over it.” You play.

He makes a humph sound and you continue, “Let me go get my sneakers on so we can get out there.”

You make it halfway to your bedroom door and then he speaks up, “Oh hey, wait, what about your job?” He asks.

Your eyes go wide and you spin around suddenly, quickly walking over to your computer to check it. You grab the mouse and tab over to your email as fast as you can and you see how full the inbox is, all from people trying to get a hold of you. Then you look at the time and see that it’s well past when you should have come back from a lunch break. Shit, how did you forget? You grab your phone off the desk which you also left inside before and see a couple missed calls from co-workers, one of which is the person that tried to call you earlier. You turn back to him in a panic and see him frown back at you.

“Shit, what am I gonna do! I.. I just completely forgot. They’ve been trying to reach me this whole time!” You blurt out, worried.

He walks up near you and rubs his chin, “You should stay in here, and fix this, I can.. I guess I’ll go help them by myself?”

You shake your head, “And let you go over there alone and have them figure out you’re dead or something? I’m gonna need to be there to keep you in line.”

He furrows his eyebrows at you, “Hey, I can handle myself just fine!” He says, sounding legitimately offended now.

You frown, “I’m sorry, but.. You decided to shake her hand. I mean, come on, you’re like ice.” You explain.

He averts his eyes, sinking down, “Okay, fine, that wasn’t my best move. I kind of.. Forgot.”

He looks back at you then, “Still, it’s not like you can take the internet connection and computer over there with you just to keep an eye on me, you gotta stay here and work right?”

Your eyes light up and you gasp suddenly, “Oh! You’re a genius!”

He only gets out a quick “Huh?” before you jump forward and kiss him abruptly. His eyebrows shoot up and he doesn’t even get a chance to do anything before you break it to spin around and grab your phone.

“I don’t understand.” He says quietly.

You shush him and dial a number, holding the phone to your ear and waiting for it to ring, “Hello? Ms. Smith? Oh, I’m so glad I could reach you…”

You quickly explain to the head secretary at your job who has kind of become like a second boss to you that your internet is completely down, that you haven’t been able to answer any emails or input work because of it. You admit that you know people were trying to call you to get your help, but you lie and say you were battling with the cable company on the phone this whole time. That you only just got off the line with them and they reassured you that the wifi should be back up and running by late tonight. Luckily she seems to buy it immediately and doesn’t even press you for details, she actually says it is no big deal and since it will take so long to come back on, she’s going to let you just take the rest of the afternoon off since you won’t be able to work during this time anyway. You make an ounce of small talk and thank her profusely, making sure to apologize once or twice for the inconvenience and then hang up.

You sigh in relief, putting the phone into your pocket and turning back to him to see that he’s just staring at you.

“What?” You question, seeing his intent gaze.

He shakes his head, “Oh uh.. It took you like no time to spin that lie, pretty immaculately too, I’m impressed.” He admits.

You smirk, “Well thank you! I’m glad  _ someone _ appreciates my talents.” You joke.

He smiles, “Hey, just like you told me, I better get some special treatment or whatever, don’t go using your talents on me alright?”

You come forward and place a hand on his arm, smiling warmly at him, “Don’t be silly, what would I even need to lie to you for?”

He shrugs, averting his eyes, “I dunno, a lot of things… Go get your shoes.” He says, immediately changing the subject.

You stick your tongue out at him and turn to go, only to feel him smack your butt a second later as you start to walk away. You jump and look over your shoulder at him with a disapproving look.

“Hey watch it!” You say in a warning tone.

He snickers, “Oh I’m watchin’ alright..” He comments, his eyes follow you as you make your way back to your room.

“Shut up!” You call, getting inside your bedroom.

You head over to your closet to grab an old pair of shoes that you won’t mind getting messed up as you help them pack the truck. Then you walk over to your dresser for a pair of socks, taking both over to the edge of the bed where you trade the sandals you put on before at the door for the sneakers. You set the sandals down on the ground as you get the new pair on, standing up and taking a few steps. You haven’t worn them in a while so they do feel a bit odd on your feet, but you’ll get used to them again soon enough. Before heading back out you bend down and grab the sandals so you can keep them near the front door, then walk out into the living area again. 

You don’t see him anywhere as you come out, making your way to the front door and setting the sandals down where they belong. You turn and look around the room, spotting some movement behind the partially closed bathroom door. You walk over and sway it open slowly, finding Beetlejuice there looking in the mirror intently and scratching his chin. He’s leaned in and staring at his facial hair, combing his fingers into the greens and browns of his scruff.

He turns to you and frowns, “Do you think I need to do something about my beard?”

You walk in to stand in the bathroom with him, brushing your hand over the fabric of his hoodie and looking him over a bit, “I dunno, it seems fine to me.”

He nods and looks back at himself, “I’m just worried because if it changes color then they’ll be able to see it really easily.”

You hum, leaning against his side, “Well just try not to get too worked up or anything, okay?”

“Yeah, well, I’ll… do my best.” He mutters.

You pat him on the chest and then take his hand, leading him out of the bathroom and towards the front door, “Could you get the lights?”

He does it a second later as you reach the door and start to turn the knob, all the lights in the house go out at once and it’s a little startling even though you just asked him to do it. It’s still bright enough inside though, with most of the windows letting the sun in. You step out and let him go around you, turning and locking the door behind you. You spin back around to him then and offer to hold hands again while you walk the short distance over to Joan’s house, he does take your hand after a long moment but you notice the hesitation and can’t help but frown a bit as your mind starts to create little worries for you to focus on. You shake your head to try to clear them and just walk a little faster, getting up to her walkway soon enough and then going up the short set of stairs and through the small front door.

Margaret is there in the front room, setting some things into a large cardboard box, but she stops and dusts her hands off when you come in.

“Oh good! You’re just in time!” She says, walking a few steps closer to the both of you.

You let go of his hand and smile at her, he just stands nearby, “So what do you need us to do?”

“I would love it if you two could help clear the living room right here, it has a couple big three seat couches, Henry definitely can’t do it alone and I am not sure I would be able to help him much.” She explains.

You nod, “No problem! We’ll get on that right now!” You say happily.

He nods too and follows behind you as you go past her through an archway into the living room area. Once you get inside you look around and see what you would expect out of an older woman who was living alone, a lot of shelves with little knick knacks and photos and an awful floral print on the walls that has a grandma kind of charm. You walk out to the middle of the room right in front of the main couch that faces the fireplace, and then turn back to him.

“Alright, you ready to do this?” You ask him, holding a hand out at the couch.

He smirks, “Way ahead of you.” he says, and the couch starts to float up off the ground.

You gasp and jump forward, throwing yourself onto it quickly and making it crash back down to the ground the short distance it was up in the air. It hits the ground hard making a loud thump and you come up from that to kneel on the cushions and steady yourself, stopping to stare daggers at him as you hear the clicks of Margaret’s shoes approaching until she peaks in the doorway.

“Is everything alright, I heard a bang?” She says hurriedly, looking around the room.

You stand up fully, backing up off the couch and straightening your shirt, about to start talking when Beetlejuice cuts in, “Oh don’t worry no one would ever bang in here.”

Margaret’s eyes widen at him and you scowl in his direction, “Don’t be rude!” After a moment you look back at her again and sigh, “Don’t worry, I just tripped.” You reassure her.

She looks at you with concern and nods, “Okay, well just please be careful!”

She goes back out after that and you wait until you can see her out of sight in the hallway before turning to him and walking over.

“What the hell are you doing?” You whisper yell at him, throwing your hands up.

He chuckles playfully, “Just having some fun, she wasn’t going to see me.”

You grumble, “You don’t know that, you have to be more careful!”

He rolls his eyes and you sigh angrily, “Look, you can lift them that way if you want but just, at least let’s make it _ look _ real, okay?”

You turn from him and go to the otherside of the couch, bending and holding it down at the bottom, “You got that side?” You ask, not looking up.

“I got it.” He says lazily.

Then the couch lifts up away from your fingers, you scramble after it to stay holding on, in order to make it look like you’re lifting it yourself rather than him doing it with his powers. You stand up then and pretend to have a hold on your side, looking over at him and nodding.

“Thank you.” You let out begrudgingly.

He lets go of his fake hold with one of his hands to throw a finger gun at you as he grins. You just huff and start to walk backward with the big thing, actually having a harder time pretending to move the furniture than you probably would if you just did this manually. But everytime you look to him for some assistance in getting it to the right angle he seems to be having a blast so you just work past it. Eventually the two of you move it out of the archway and into the front room where you can spin around and start to haul it out the front door. Once you get onto the porch, acting like you’re struggling to go down stairs is one of the silliest things you have had to do in your life so far. You make a small show of acting like this is really hard and then the two of you bring it over to the truck, setting it down on the ramp that leads into the back. Once you let go you stand up again and look inside to see Henry organizing a loveseat and a small dresser so they fit against the back wall of the storage area. You offer him a small wave before walking away back inside with Beetlejuice.

You two continue this charade with all the furniture remaining in the living room that Margaret asks you to move out there, as you make the trips, you see her and Henry going in and out several times as well. She is mostly packing and moving much smaller boxes, while he stays outside for most of it and organizes the things in the truck, the two of you left to do the so-called heavy lifting. It’s not the most fair system for sure, but they don’t know you guys are cheating, so it’s fine and it’s working well enough. The afternoon wears on as you go back and forth, eventually even though most of the time the items are floating just above your fingers, doing this is still making you tired and your back doesn’t feel great from pretending to need to hunch over all the time either. He doesn’t seem to have a problem with it though, if anything he has started to look bored. You get a long console table from another room out there to the truck and before you two can hustle back inside to get something else Henry stops you.

“Hey, BJ, could you grab this with me? I can’t slide it up the ramp by myself.” He asks him, gesturing to the furniture you both just put down.

You look over at him and he nods to Henry, “Hm, yeah sure… get that side.”

You pause and watch to make sure Beetlejuice doesn’t levitate the thing, then you leave them to it and go back inside the house to see if Margaret needs anything you can help her with until they’re done. You hop up the steps on the front porch and get all the way to the kitchen quickly, stopping in front of her where she is wrapping up a china set to put away into a box marked fragile.

“Hey, can I get some of that newspaper?” You ask her, twisting side to side to stretch your back.

She hands you over a section from the stack of papers, “Of course, thanks for the help! Just wad some up for the insides of these bowls.” She instructs.

You nod to her and start balling up the paper to keep the bowls from hitting against each other in the box. You line them with a flat sheet first, then add a wad of paper, then stack, and repeat. This goes on for a couple minutes in pleasant silence, you both working next to each other with her wrapping and stacking the plates while you do the bowls, and they both go into the box on top of larger serving dishes that line the bottom. It’s quiet other than the occasional glass clinking sounds between one of the two of you, until a short while passes and you hear some distant yelling. You stop and put the bowl you are about to wrap down and turn around, you hear it coming from out front and after a moment it suddenly gets louder.

“Shit.” You mutter out loud, leaving Margaret without another word and walking briskly out to the front porch.

You step out of the house and see Henry and Beetlejuice standing far apart out near the open back of the truck, a tacky loveseat is toppled over onto its side near the two of them. You start to approach, seeing Henry pointing wildly and as you get closer you begin to hear what they’re yelling back and forth at each other.

“You dropped it on my foot on purpose!” Comes Henry’s voice.

“What are you talking about, no I didn’t!” Beetlejuice returns.

“But I  _ clearly _ saw you, you just let it go, I told you I wasn’t ready!” Henry shouts back.

“Fuck y--” He starts to counter but you walk in the middle, interrupting him.

“Hey hey, stop it, what’s with all the yelling?” You say loudly enough over top of Beetlejuice trying to curse at him.

Henry grumbles from your left, “He’s a jerk!”

Beetlejuice scowls, “Me?!”

You clear your throat and hold your hands up at them to make them quiet down, “Would you both stop it, I’m sure it was just an accident.” 

Henry crosses his arms, “But I  _ saw _ him, he just let it go right on me, no warning at all!”

You sigh, turning to Beej and giving him a look, “Did you drop it by accident?” You ask, lowering your eyebrows at him.

He glances between Henry and you for a second and then lowers his gaze, “ _ Yeah _ , I dropped it.” He grumbles.

You turn back quickly, “See, he’s just a baby, too proud to say he messed up, no big deal--”

“Hey!” He cuts in and you wave a hand at him, causing Henry to smirk like he’s won.

Henry lets his arms come unfolded and huffs, “Well say you’re sorry at least!”

You wince, knowing that isn’t going to go over very well, then Beej turns to walk away, “No.” He says rigidly.

You sigh, just letting him go and then turning to Henry, “Sorry about him, really, he just gets like that sometimes, I’ll just keep him inside okay? Can you calm down too?” You try to explain.

You’re not really telling the truth because he doesn’t usually act like this, but then again, he also doesn’t usually talk to many people, or get left alone with them at that. He has been talking to pretty much no one but you since he has been able to talk to people at all, of course you can’t use that as an excuse though. Instead it’s just easier to try and brush it away for now, you’re not all that interested in having extended conversation with Henry right now anyway.

“Hmf, fine, I guess.” He mutters, offering you a nod.

You politely thank him and start to walk back to the house, and after a moment you hear him attempt to drag the loveseat up into the truck alone as you retreat. You make it back up the walkway quickly, jumping up the steps and ducking inside. You look down the main hall and see that Margaret has left the box of dishes for now, probably to move more things around in the kitchen. You spot Beetlejuice just standing off to the side next to the stairs leaned against the wall. You go over and grab him by the arm, leading him into the nearby bathroom and closing the door behind you once you’re both inside, much to your surprise he doesn’t protest at all.

You turn around after closing the door and locking it to see he is just looking away and frowning, so you cross your arms, whisper yelling “What’s up with you? You can just levitate stuff, I know you didn’t actually drop it by accident, what’s going on?”

He leans back against the sink, “I dunno, thought It’d be funny..” He says quietly, trailing off and looking to the side.

You squint at him, “Come on, that’s not it, I saw you before, you’ve been giving him the stink eye all afternoon, what's your deal?”

He sighs, looking at you finally, “I don’t trust him. He seems… bad.”

You let your stance drop some, looking at him confused, “What? But why? Joan’s family are all really nice, he hasn’t done anything.”

He grunts, “I dunno, he’s just.. Really  _ pretty _ , and acts all friendly and too perfect, and he seems like he has everything going for him. You can’t trust people like that!” He explains, his voice getting angrier as it goes on. 

You tilt your head, staring at him, “Well that’s just a hunch though, he hasn’t done anything wrong.”

Beej grumbles, looking down, “Well he.. He touched you before and--”

You cut in, “Wait, that’s what this is about? He just gave me a hug!” You say, stepping closer to him.

He frowns, “Well yeah, but--”

and you cut him off again, “Listen if you’re just jealous then--”

He stands up from where he’s leaning, “That’s not it!” He practically yells.

You step back, startled at the sudden outburst, “You… you didn’t want that hug right?” He continues, much quieter.

You look confused, “Well, no, not really… I don’t get it, why does that matter?” You say slowly.

He shakes his head, “Can you think of anyone else who might, ya know, get all up on you without asking?” He says it angrily, crossing his arms and looking at the ground.

You briefly think of joking about whether he means himself, because he can be very touchy too, but you recognize that he’s upset right now and it definitely isn’t the time. Plus he didn’t actually bothered you that much once he became corporeal, you guess that if he had gotten his powers back sooner it might have gone down differently though. You gulp, looking down at the ground and fidgeting your hands with a frown. It took you a second, but you know who he means, he has to be talking about William. He tried to be all friendly too in the beginning, smiling and talking with you at the workplace, but after a while it got more desperate and insistent. Enough to signal plenty of red flags about him and his intentions. Definitely enough warning signs to let you see right through his attempts at being a nice guy, that’s why you were steering clear of him in the first place. Is there a chance that Henry is really trying to do something like that? Joan’s newly married son, at that, there’s no way she could raise someone to be that horrible, could she?

You turn back over to him to see that he’s staring at you, “Yeah.. So.. I just got that kinda vibe. That’s why I don’t like him.” He admits.

You let your arms hang down heavily at your sides, “Okay, I guess… I just didn’t see it that way, so, I hadn’t really considered it.” You hesitantly explain, still frowning deeply.

He looks you over and then sighs, “Look, I’m probably wrong, you already trust his family, so there’s probably no need to worry about it.” He tries gently.

You nod slowly, but you’re still a little unsure. After what was happening at the office, it would be smart to just be cautious around strangers who don’t respect boundaries anyway, you may have been friends with his mother but that doesn’t automatically make his character similar. It just seems so impossible though, even if he did neglect to ask before invading your space, it didn’t actually feel that serious. You sigh, hoping that he’s just a little too overexcited, not that he’s malicious.

You look back up at him and see him eyeing you waiting, “Yeah, I’m okay… plus, I don’t have anything to worry about right?” You say softly, gesturing to him.

He smiles finally, nodding, “Nope! I’ll punt him down the street for you.”

You laugh, coming forward to get a small hug and then stepping back to look up at him, “If you don’t like him then how come you called him pretty?” You question lightheartedly, trying to bring a good mood back.

He shrugs, “Well you’ve seen him, blonde hair, soft eyes, tall, built pretty well. He’s a hunk.”

You snort, “Well don’t go gettin’ any ideas!” You joke.

He scoffs, “Listen it took me less than a minute to decide I hate the guy’s guts, maybe  _ you _ shouldn’t get any ideas!” He plays.

You roll your eyes, “He is absolutely not my type.”

He smirks, moving in closer to you, “Oh yeah?”

You smile, “Yeah. Plus I’m not just gonna do that, not when you’re my uh.. You know…” You say, trailing off.

His eyes go wide and he leans back, “Uh, yes.. Yourr…” But he doesn’t finish.

You wait a bit and then when he doesn’t say anything you look at him directly, “My boyfriend?” You say hesitantly, accidentally phrasing it like a question.

He looks away, “Um, well.. about that.”

You furrow your eyebrows at him, stepping back, “...but out there on the sidewalk, you said--”

He cuts in “Well yes, I know what I said, but..”

You look down, “It was just part of all the rest of the lying…” You mutter, mostly to yourself as you think.

“No! ..Only kind of..” He tries, stepping closer.

You shake your head, your face falling hard as you turn away, making a move to open the bathroom door without saying anything in return.

He tries to grab onto your shoulder and stop you “That’s not what I meant!--” but you just shrug him off and get out past the doorway, telling him, “It doesn’t matter.”

You hear him following behind you intently as you walk down the hallway, he isn’t saying anything but you don’t look back at him. You might be overreacting a little but that still hurt, he shouldn’t say things if he doesn’t mean them, and what the hell does he mean by kind of? This is not really a  _ kind of _ thing, you two are either together or you aren’t. This was supposed to be easier now, wasn’t the whole point of yesterday's argument to clear up all the confusing difficult bits? You grimace as you pass through an archway into Joan’s kitchen, the one room you recognize from being invited inside through the side door a few times for refreshments before while she still lived here.

You spot Margaret wrapping up some bigger dishes and walk up next to her to collect a full box from the ground beside her, turning on your heel and going to take it out through the front. As you pass by Beetlejuice who has stopped to stand nearby you see that he has little pricks of purple in his beard hair. You sigh, stopping and propping the box against a ledge on the side of the stairs, turning back to him and using a free hand to gesture to your own chin and mouth area, hoping he gets it. You see his eyes go wide and then he hustles out of the kitchen where she is, slipping past you and going to an empty area of the house. You get a good hold on the box again and continue the trek outside. You get to the back of the truck soon enough, setting the box down on the edge of the loading area. Henry starts walking over to grab it and organize it with all the others and you quickly turn and slip down the sidewalk a bit, waiting near the side of the truck for him to be out of view and then leaning back against the metal and sighing.

You’re definitely not interested in talking to him right now, or going back inside the house just get, so instead you just stay there and close your eyes. Now that Beetlejuice brought up the idea of Henry being ingenuine you don’t feel the best about hanging around with him out here, and you would rather just talk to no one for a little bit either way. After a while of feeling the gentle rays of the fading afternoon sun against your face you open your eyes and stare up at the house. Its normal pale yellow color looks brighter and more vivid in the beginnings of a sunset, the sun coating it in soft oranges as it starts to go down. You frown and fold your arms, wishing you could just appreciate how nice it looks but instead seeing it and knowing it’s empty now, and will only keep getting more empty as the furniture is taken away, just makes you increasingly upset as you stare the place down.

You push yourself away from the heated metal with a low grunt and you’re about to get back inside, to at least keep being productive so you can ignore the feelings more easily, but instead you hear a call from off to your right. You turn and see Henry is walking up to you, you glance down and lean back against the truck. So much for that. 

“Hey Y/N, what are you doing out here, taking a break?” He asks, coming up to stand near you.

You nod slowly, letting the frown leave you, “Yeah, something like that.” You were trying not to call attention to yourself but your tone betrays you.

He leans against the metal siding of the truck with you, “Is something the matter?”

You sigh, “Just, not having the best day is all.” You say, looking off at the second floor windows on the front of the house as if you’ll see something different up there this time.

He hums beside you, following your gaze, “Yeah I’m sure it’s pretty hard.”

You turn to look at him, and he nods his head in the direction of the porch, “Being inside the house.”

You look down, frowning, “Mhmm.” Is all you offer.

You kind of feel terrible, because this is the last person you want to have this conversation with. This is Joan’s son after all, if anyone should be having a hard time, having issues being here, it should be her family first. He has every right to be upset or grieving or whatever he needs to be and here you are making it about you. Not that feeling down about her death is the only problem you have right now, but that’s besides the point.

“That’s why I’ve kind of been staying out here for the most of it. Embarrassing, I know.. Because Auntie needs my help. If you guys didn’t show up would I still be hiding out in the truck? Who knows…” He continues quietly, like he’s talking to himself.

You frown, “That’s not embarrassing, you’re still grieving.” You say slowly.

He nods, “I know, I just feel like I should have gotten past this by now. But it was really hard on all of us, her family, because it was so sudden.” He explains.

You fold your arms gently, “It just takes time is all, there’s no rush to feeling better.” You reason with him, feeling rather hypocritical saying that aloud to someone else.

He nods at you, patting your shoulder, “Yeah it does, thanks... We are all just really glad because so many things were bothering her for years and she had a lot of pain, the positive to all this is at least she’s not in pain anymore.”

You let yourself show a small smile, facing him, “I’m glad too, that’s the best way to look at it for sure.” You say, uncrossing your arms.

He flashes you a big smile and gives you a last pat on the shoulder, sort of as a goodbye, and then heads around to get back inside the loading area of the truck. You watch him go and hear some scraping sounds soon after from him moving things. You let out a deep breath you didn’t realize you were holding, standing up straight from leaning back for so long and starting to slowly walk back inside. You definitely think Beetlejuice is wrong about him, and that does put you at ease, but now you can’t stop thinking about Joan and that’s going to make this whole thing a lot harder. It’s so hard to follow the advice that you just gave, even though you want to, feeling better is just going to take time but you would prefer to happen right now so this day can go a little smoother.

You drag your feet for a while until you get up the porch stairs and back inside, making sure to take your time on the short walk so you have enough time to breathe and collect yourself before seeing anyone else. As you step inside you see Beetlejuice standing nearby, you consider going up to him but he turns around to act busy as Margaret enters the hallway and you figure he’s just hiding his hair still. You frown and then turn to look at her, scratching the side of your arm awkwardly.

“Hey Margaret, would you mind if I take a look around upstairs? I’ve never actually been up there before.” You ask after hesitating for a bit.

She puts down a picture frame she was wiping off and turns to you fully, “Of course dear, if you want to take a break and just look around don’t let me stop you! Just be careful up on the landing, there is still a lot of clutter around.”

You nod and thank her, waiting a moment to see if she’ll say more but then she just turns to keep dusting off the items on a shelf so she can put them away. You are silently relieved about that, you don’t know if it’s on purpose from her part but you really don’t want to have a conversation with her like you did with Henry, purely because you are trying to keep from getting emotional in front of everyone. You doubt you would be able to act normal if Margaret started reassuring you and talking you through the grief, she’s too kind and gentle you would probably start crying easily and you want to avoid that at all costs.

You turn and start to head up the stairs, seeing Beetlejuice emerge from another room as you do to follow behind you up to the next floor, you glance at him as you start to climb but don’t stop him. You get to the top after just a second and she was right, the landing is cluttered with boxes and most things are already packed up it seems. Something about that makes you feel worse, but you just walk past, seeing that one of the only things left on this floor that isn’t put away is a bookshelf between two bedroom doors that’s covered in family photos and old dusty novels. You stand in front of it and look around each shelf, room for more books being taken up by photos of Joan’s kids and siblings and probably her parents if you had to guess who the older people in the greyed photo is. You pick one of the frames up and blow it off, fanning the air to move the dust away and see a younger version of her standing next to a tall man, with a few little kids huddled around their legs, you recognize the young boy as probably being Henry. You turn the frame over and see the year, guessing he is around eight or nine at the time, it’s pretty cute so you smile to yourself as you put it back where it was.

You drift through the other rooms on the floor, slowly looking over each one despite them all being basically the same. Mattresses and bed frames stacked and leaning against the far wall, everything that isn’t large furniture is put away in boxes and the walls and shelves that line the rooms are empty. You sigh heavily, turning from the last room and walking out to find BJ standing nearby the door waiting for you. He looks like he wants to say something but he isn’t talking, and he isn’t looking up at you. As you wait to see if he’ll start to say something you let your eyes trail upwards towards the ceiling, looking up at it with a new determination.

He clears his throat beside you but you turn and hold out a hand, tapping your fingertips to the front of his chest, “Beetlejuice.” You say quietly.

“Huh?” Is all he manages after a long pause.

You point up at the ceiling, “Is there… an attic up there?’

He looks surprised that you’re even talking to him, “Uh, well I can check, but, what about using my powers--” He stutters.

You cut him off, “Just do it, they’re not up here, they won’t see you.” You say with a wave of your hand.

He nods and floats up there quickly, poking his head through the ceiling and then moving upwards a little further. After a second he lowers back down, coming to stand on the landing with you again, his head coated in a sheet of dust. He shakes around and the particles fly off of him into the air, floating around visible in the rays of the late afternoon sun coming through the nearby window.

He fidgets with his hands, “Yeah, there is one up there bu--”

You hold up a hand and stop him, “Just… let me see it myself.” You say slowly.

You go around to each bedroom again, checking more thoroughly, making sure to look at the ceiling of each room and each closet for any sign of a way up. Every room is just like the last, no door with a way upwards in sight and you start to lose confidence that there is one at all. Maybe it’s a closed off place that isn’t even used for storage so there’s not actually a ladder to get inside. Maybe that’s what Beetlejuice was trying to tell you when you stopped him, but you hold on to the hope that’s not it. You walk over to the nearby bathroom, although you really doubt it’s in there, you want to check anyway. Meanwhile he is following behind you this whole time, showing a surprising amount of patience waiting for you as you look around the entire second floor. You’re about to give up when you notice that a high stack of boxes in the corner is blocking something.

You start to move the top one and see a door frame, gasping to yourself because this has got to be it! But before you can do anymore the boxes all shift over like three feet to the right, including the box you were holding, which poofs out of your hands and lands back on the stack in its new position. You turn and look at him but he just gives you a small smile and gestures to the door, you offer him a nod as a thank you and open it, seeing a tiny empty closet. You assume it was a linen closet or something similar before, but it’s just a dark little cubby lined with dusty shelves now, another place that has been cleared out. You look up and sure enough there is a hatch on the ceiling with a short string hanging down, a knot tied at the end of it that gives a place to grab onto better. You reach up to try and grab the string, swinging your hand at it desperately but it’s just out of reach as you lean forward and go up on your toes trying to get closer to it. You huff in frustration and you’re about to try jumping up off the ground when he shuffles against your side in the doorway of this tight space to grab it, pulling it down a couple inches and bringing it to your outstretched hand instead of just opening it himself. You look back and offer him a small mutter of a thank you, before pulling it down to unfurl a steep set of wooden steps that go up through the small square hole in the ceiling that leads to the attic. The hatch opening is small and the space of the stairs is too but you take a deep breath and start climbing anyway.

He doesn’t follow right behind you this time, he waits until you get all the way up and into the attic and then comes up through the floor instead. You get up there and then stand upright, steadying yourself from the shaky stairs. You take a second to spin around slowly, looking at the cramped space that’s barely tall enough for you to stand comfortably. The edges of the room are lined with old ratty boxes and forgotten things, a layer of dust covering everything like it hasn’t been touched in years. You sigh to yourself, walking around the edge of the room despite the low ceiling with slow heavy steps. You spend several silent minutes looking down at all the little things that got tucked away, running your hand over the residue covered boxes, before coming back to the middle of the room and letting out a breath from deep in your chest and lowering down to sit on the floor.

He stops standing off to the side staring at you and walks over hesitantly, joining you on the floor as well. Neither of you say anything for a long time, you just sit silently together on the creaky floor. Eventually you decide to lay back on the floor of the attic, dust be damned, you’re already not clean after moving stuff all day. You look up at the wooden supports of the roof, home to a few wandering spiders who scurry aimlessly looking for something caught in a web that they can eat. You take a deep breath and close your eyes and after a few moments he puts his hand on top of yours where it rests palm up at your side.

“I take it, you didn’t find what you were looking for?” He asks gently.

After a few long moments you open your eyes, just staring straight up, “No, no I didn’t.” You say quietly, and it comes out hoarse.

He sighs too, and lets go of your hand in order to lay back against the floor beside you, propping his head up with his folded arms.

It’s silent for awhile again, but you decide to speak up, “I just thought.. Well since I could see you, maybe.. Maybe I could…” You trail off.

He finishes it for you, “You’d find her here?”

You hear him say it and the words being spoken out loud force a couple stray tears to leave you, you reach up to wipe them away and cough on the dust you kick up onto your face by moving your arm.

He turns to you and frowns, so you keep talking up at the ceiling, “Yeah… I thought maybe I might get a chance to see her, or something. I know…” You swallow thickly, “I know this is silly, but, before  _ you _ at least, she was kind of my only friend around here? And it’s sad because I would just help her with chores and she would give me tea or lemonade and nice conversation sometimes.. I shouldn’t be this attached I guess but after I moved away from my parents I was alone out here and--”

He cuts in, “Babe… a friend is a friend, being attached isn’t.. A bad thing.” he says slowly.

You sit up finally and hunch forward to rest your hands on your thighs, he follows suit and sits up next to you, scooting in closer. “Yeah… I guess so. I just, I didn’t even find out until it was much too late, I wish I could have said goodbye you know?” You ask, turning to him.

He frowns and you see his beard has little bits of this deep purple, probably to match the hair that’s hiding under his hat. “I know…” Is all he says.

You sit in silence for another couple long moments as you look down at the floor in front of you. When you glance back up at him after a while you see that he’s offering an open arm to you, a tiny smile tugs at the corner of your lips and you scoot in, leaning into his side and letting him hold you gently.

You sigh, and he talks after a bit more silence, “I know it sucks that you didn’t get a chance to do anything, that by time you knew it was too late. But I’m sure she’s doing okay now, she isn’t here which means she’s probably in the netherworld somewhere. I assume it’s pretty damn boring for her but I doubt she’s in any danger.” He explains.

You nod along, finding it odd that he equates the afterlife with being boring, but that’s probably just because he’s a demon and he’s used to whatever the netherworld holds. But boring and safe is better than suffering so there’s that, definitely not the hell you envisioned in the past when you would imagine what life after death is really like.

He continues after a moment, but softer, “I don’t really know how to do more, for you... I only know death from this side, but I’m sure it’s really hard going the other way.” He admits.

You rest your hand on his thigh and lean back to smile sadly at him, “That’s okay, this is enough.”

He smiles back and pulls you into a proper hug. You hold it for a long while, just breathing against him and smelling nothing but old dust. You come back out of it after a bit and take a deep breath, looking down.

He squeezes around your shoulders and he starts talking, “You sure you don’t need anything else?”

You lift your head up but don’t meet his eyes, “Well, a kiss couldn’t hurt.” You mumble.

He cracks a small smile, “Sure thing, you want three, or four?” He asks.

You snort lightly, looking back to him warmly, “Just one please.”

He smiles, leaning forward but instead of coming down to meet you he just offers you a little kiss on the forehead. It takes you by surprise by how gentle and nice it is, but it’s definitely welcome. 

You lean against him more and hum quietly, closing your eyes, “What a cop out.” You mutter.

He snickers, squeezing you tighter, “Next time be more specific then, doll.” He says into your hair.

The two of you stay like that for what seems like a long time, just holding each other in the attic and not making much conversion anymore. It’s a peasant quiet though, you can hear faint sounds from the two other people moving around the first floor, and the occasional floor creak from underneath you. You chalk it up to the house just moving and breathing in the wind because if there were any stray ghosts haunting the place you assume you would have seen them by now. After a while passes you figure you should meet back up with Margaret, she might get worried with how long the two of you have been missing. You stand up slowly, using his shoulder for leverage as you get up off the ground and bend your legs a few times so they feel normal again. Instead of standing like normal with you he just floats up until he’s high enough to set his legs down on the floor again, and as you start to walk forward towards the hatch back down he begins talking quickly behind you.

“Um.. wait!” He pipes up hurriedly.

You look back to him and he frowns, looking down and rubbing his arm. “Look I’m.. I’m sorry about, downstairs, I--” You cut in, walking back over to him and putting a hand on his chest.

“Let’s talk about it later, okay?” He looks up from the ground to meet your eyes and looks worried, so you smile warmly at him “That can wait, let’s just get back down there.”

You had almost completely forgotten about being upset with him if you’re being honest, those feelings faded easily as the afternoon waned on, but it is nice he is at least attempting to apologize. After starting to think about Joan and then getting the idea in your head that you might be able to see her again that situation became a problem at the back of your mind entirely. But you can tell that something bigger is definitely wrong here and it’s not just a matter of him being insensitive to your feelings or him lying or anything. Those things did hurt you before but you have a feeling properly fixing this is going to be a much bigger discussion than you have time for right now. And someone else’s attic is definitely not the place for it.

You give him a little peck on the cheek to reassure him and step back. “Right.. Later, okay.” He says quietly.

You go and look at the little entry to the attic and instead turn back and hold your hand out to him, “Could you just take me down a floor? Those stairs are rickety and terrible.”

He smiles hesitantly, “Course’ babe.”

He steps forward and takes your hand, quickly bringing you both down to the second floor landing again. You don’t need to steady yourself or even hold on that tightly because it’s over in an instant, you guess that is because of how short the distance traveled is, but either way you’re glad for it. Once there you set the attic stairs back into the ceiling and close the hatch, then step back and he slides the boxes back over the same way he did before to cover the doorway. You nod to him once he does and then start to descend down the stairs back to the first floor, as you do you realize it sounds strangely quiet. Back on the first floor you walk around and look into different rooms but don’t find anyone, it’s not until you decide to peek out the front door that you see both Margaret and Henry standing out near the back of the truck.

You start out the door towards them with BJ in tow, his hair all back to normal now, but as you’re walking up you see Henry hang up his phone and then wave at a car that’s pulling up. You get over to where Margaret is standing and see the car pull over and a lanky teenage boy get out, who promptly makes eye contact with you and Beetlejuice then shoves two boxes into Henry's hands. He yells to “Just take it!” before scrambling back in the driver’s seat of his clunky old sedan and speeding away down the street despite Henry’s protests. You can’t help but laugh quietly to yourself, covering your mouth with your hand and looking away as it happens. Henry comes back over shortly and sets the boxes down on a folding table that hasn’t made it into the truck yet.

“Well that sure was strange! He didn’t even give me a chance to pay.” He says with a huff, opening the top box quickly.

Margaret turns to the two of you and raises an eyebrow at your laughter before gesturing to the table, “We wanted to thank the two of you for all the help today! I hope pizza is alright.”

You nod enthusiastically and Beej has already started walking over to the boxes, “Hell yeah! More than alright.” He gets out before grabbing a slice and eating probably around half of it in one bite.

You snicker at him, “Thanks, you didn’t have to.. But I  _ am _ really hungry.” You admit to her with a gentle smile, following as she approaches the table to get some food as well.

The four of you eat for a while, enjoying a plain cheese pie and a pepperoni pie together while either standing or using the back of the truck as a seat. Conversation is light and BJ and Henry thoroughly avoid each other but luckily it isn’t especially awkward or anything. You’re just glad you decided to come help out in the first place, even though you had to lie and skip work to do it. The day wasn’t perfect by any means but you feel like it has at least ended well after everything that happened. You end up having to put a hand on Beetlejuice’s leg and give him a look so he stops getting up to grab more after a while, having him sit near you on the back of the truck and settle for eating your crusts instead. Then before you know it the sun is all the way down and the street is dark aside from a few lamps at each end, and all the eating slowly come to a stop as everyone collectively decides to leave the pizza boxes alone.

Margaret walks over and closes the boxes, “There are a few slices left of each, would you like to take one of them home with you?” She asks, turning to you.

You nod after a second, “Sure! The leftover pepperoni would be great.” You say, standing up and leaving your paper plate of crusts with BJ as you walk over to the table.

She hands you the box and then picks up the other one, Henry coming over a second later and folding up the table after dusting his hands off, then sliding it into a space off to the side in the back of the truck. You look around and realize that all of the furniture that was waiting around to be organized is now packed and the front yard of the house is empty too.

“We thought we would get going about now and pack up the rest another time, since it’s dark and all.” She says with a small nod.

You agree and then hand off the pizza box to Beej who has walked up and raises an eyebrow at you, as Henry closes the sliding door of the truck and locks it up. You dust pizza crumbs off your hands as Henry comes over and takes the box from Margaret as well, allowing her to approach you with a warm smile as if on cue.

You two join in a short hug and she gives your shoulders a good squeeze as she pulls away, “It was really nice to see you again.” You say as you lean back.

She clasps her hands together in front of her, “Likewise! Don’t be a stranger either, I’ll let you know ahead of time when I’ll be around from now on so maybe we can have a chat outside of the busy work of packing and moving.” She says happily.

You nod along, “Of course of course, I would love that!”

You get back onto the sidewalk to join Beetlejuice after saying your final goodbyes to the both of them, with him even offering a wave of his own. They hop into the front of the truck, start it up and begin driving away after a few moments. You two walk back to the house together, since he’s holding the pizza box you have free hands to unlock the door and let him in first. He surprisingly gets inside through the doorway like a normal person would and you step in after, closing and relocking the door behind you as you set your keys down off to the side. You realize how gross you feel after sweating for so long and then hanging out in the dust of the attic and decide that you really need a shower before you can change clothes or even think of laying down.

“You can eat those leftovers if you really want to, if not, I know you know where all my containers are, so can you put it away in the fridge?” You ask him, he hums in agreement and you see him nod with the box in his arms as he makes his way towards the kitchen after you finish talking.

You frown a little at his lack of a regular response and start towards the bedroom, “I’m just gonna shower real fast, I’ll be right out!” You call to him. 

You get into the bedroom and slip out of the clothes you laid on the floor with, putting them into your laundry hamper and heading to the bathroom immediately. You run the water as you use the bathroom and then step in to get rinsed off once it’s ready. You want to make it quick because you’re tired but you still take the extra time to lather up and be thorough while you’re already in the water. It doesn’t take too long though, and soon enough you’re able to step out and start toweling off. With the water now turned off it’s quiet, you listen for any noise on the other side of the door and then slowly open it. You glance around and see that he isn’t in the room though, so you go to your dresser to put on some shorts and a t-shirt to sleep in. The door is partially open but you get dressed anyway and hang the towel up to dry.

You come out in your new pajamas expecting to see him somewhere but the living room looks empty too. You walk out slowly and you’re about to call out to him to see if he’s somewhere else in the house when you make it around the side of the room and see him slumped over on the armrest of the couch. He looks pretty down judging by his position and you just stand there for a second not knowing if you should say something first or walk over first. You quickly decide on the latter, coming over and sitting next to him, but he doesn’t really respond to your presence or look up at all.

It’s quiet for a little bit but then you clear your throat and say “Hey.. what are you doing out here?”

He sits up and already has a frown on, “Well I’m probably gonna spend the night out here.”

You make a face of confusion so he just points to the TV, “Ya know, like when people fight and one of them has to sleep on the couch.”

You snort lightly and then sigh right after, “How about we  _ don’t  _ do that, okay? Let’s fix whatever is going on and then we can just go back to sleeping together.” He raises his eyebrows at you and you roll your eyes, “not like that..”

He laughs quietly, “Alright so.. Later on, is now instead?”

You nod, “Yeah, let’s talk..”

It’s quiet for a while, you fold your hands in your lap and you wait for whenever he’s ready to start. Meanwhile he shifts in his seat next to you, not looking over at all, but even from this side view you can see he is looking very nervous.

After a long time he finally glances at you, “So are you.. Gonna yell now or what?”

You frown, “No.. I’m, I’m not yelling at you, I was waiting for you to start talking.” You explain, surprised he thought that’s where this would start out.

He looks confused for a second, then looks down and starts fidgeting with his hands. You reach out and take one of them to stop him, “Hey look, I’m not angry right now, I just wanna clear everything up, okay?” You tell him.

He nods, “So let’s start at the top.. I guess.” You suggest.

He takes his hand back after that and crosses his legs. He looks slightly less nervous, and you wait a while again but after a bit of silence you can see he isn’t really going to start on his own right now. So you decide to do it yourself instead in order to get the ball rolling.

“Alright so I kind of noticed it since the morning but you have seemed like, off and not yourself all day today. Are you ready to tell me what’s wrong?” You ask.

He looks away at that and the mood seems to shift, his hair is actually still in the hat from before so you can’t quite tell how he’s feeling other than that he looks uncomfortable.

“I’m fine, that’s not the problem, this is about when I was all rude to you or whatever before.” He finally gets out.

You frown, “Well, sure, but you were acting weird all day, and then you did that. You’re saying there isn’t anything bigger happening?” You question him.

He won’t look at you, “Yeah, of course.”

You huff, “So you wanted to say you’re with me in front of Margaret, only to take it back later?”

He looks down at the ground, “Well, no.. But..”

You push a little further, “Then what were you trying to do? Lie?”

He grumbles, “No! It was just.. I wasn’t thinking about it, then, well… uugghh”

He groans and slumps back on the couch, leaning his head back and looking up to face the ceiling. You sit back too, folding your hands and sighing as you look down at your lap. Maybe this will be harder than you originally thought. After spending time with him pretty much every day it hasn’t been very hard to learn that communication is not his strong suit. But you figured if you were patient with him and initiated the conversation that it would work out a little better than this. You look over at him and then take a breath to start talking calmly again, you want to get to the bottom of this tonight instead of letting it stew until tomorrow and maybe get worse with time.

“Bug, could you just tell me what’s going on? I can’t read your mind here.” You reason.

He stays looking at the ceiling but starts talking again, “Maybe, maybe we can’t do this.” He says slowly.

You frown, “Do what..?”

He sits back up, looking forward rather than at you right away, “Listen, you’re real great, but I’m a  _ demon _ . I should be, in hell, or torturing some people or something. Not in your house. This.. I dunno... “ He mumbles at the end, staring hard at the ground.

You are suddenly feeling a lot more nervous, so you reach out and touch his shoulder lightly, “What are you saying..?”

He shakes his head and finally looks over, “I should leave, this is really... Against the natural order of things.” He musters, gesturing between the two of you.

At hearing him say that you suddenly get really frustrated, taking your hand back and balling them both into fists in your lap.

“Oh, cut the crap!” You let out finally, not a full yell but definitely louder than you were before.

He turns and raises his eyebrows at you, looking rather shocked at that response, but not managing to say anything just yet.

You poke a finger at his chest, “You listen here,  _ buddy _ . I know you’re like 1000 or something, and I’ve only known you for a very insignificant amount of that time, but I know for a  _ fact  _ that you could not give any less of a shit about the natural order of literally anything!” You rant, leaning closer to him as you go.

He sinks back into the couch as you get closer but just lets you go off. You take a breath after talking and then fold your arms, “So, tell me what’s  _ actually _ wrong! No more bullshit!”

He darts his eyes around like he’s looking for somewhere to escape but you’ve basically cornered him against the back of the couch and the armrest. He could easily just poof right out of here if he really wanted to but you stare him down anyway, hoping he’ll just spill it instead of running away.

Finally he knocks his head back against the couch in frustration, his hair coming free as the hat falls away, “Fine! I’m overwhelmed okay!!” He practically yells, squeezing his eyes shut.

You just look at him, knitting your brows together, “Huh? Overwhelmed… by what?” You question, leaning away finally.

He sits back up, huffing “This, you, everything.” He says quickly, pointing between the two of you. 

You frown, “Me? Well, I’m sorry.. I di--”

He cuts you off, “No! Don’t  _ apologize _ to me, god.. This.. “ He groans, putting his head in his hands.

You sit back and look away, feeling a lot more unsure now. Some time passes quietly and you don’t try to restart the conversation because you honestly don’t know how to at this moment. He comes back up from holding his head after a bit and smooths a hand over his hair, which you notice is a good bit purple at this point but there’s also some yellow embarrassment mixed in.

“I don’t understand…” You say quietly, deciding to try talking first even though you’re unsure.

He huffs, “That stuff is exactly the problem, you’re just too fuckin’ nice. You’re being all considerate, and understanding, and  _ supportive _ like.. Can you stop? I really don’t deserve this!” He explains.

You fold your arms, “Okay… so?” You say easily, finally seeing what he’s getting at here.

He blinks at you, “What?”

You frown seriously at him, “I don’t care. Who says people have to deserve good things in order for them to happen. And who even determines if a person is deserving?” You reason.

Before he can cut in you keep going, “I have decided that I like you, and I see  _ no _ reason not to be nice to you while I am at it.” You say matter-of-factly. 

He shakes his head in frustration, “How about the fact that I have done countless terrible awful things, completely _ free  _ of remorse might I add? I am literally a demon! You don’t just.. You _can’t_ just ignore that!” He nearly yells, throwing his hands up as he talks. 

You unfold your arms and sigh, “How could I  _ possibly _ ignore that about you,” You gesture to him before you continue, “I’m not ignoring it, but think about it, you and I both know that you’re a demon. So how could I hold you to the same standards that I would a human?” You question him.

He furrows his eyebrows in confusion, “What are you talking about?”

“Well yeah you’ve done terrible shit, you’re mean, you fuck with people’s lives, if a regular dude did all that I probably wouldn’t act the same way. But that’s what is normal for demons, that’s like your whole thing! And not to mention since I have known you, you’ve nearly always been at least decent towards me, if not for how annoying you are sometimes. Plus you’ve also been legitimately nice to me! You’ve actually listened when I asked you not to kill people or put them in danger or anything else I felt was wrong by my standards, even though that does go against your nature.”

He takes the chance to fold his arms now, “Alright, so what?” He asks stubbornly.

You huff, “So that’s the  _ point _ ! Maybe you were an asshole for your whole millennia long afterlife but what’s that matter if you aren’t being one now!”

He gets up suddenly, walking a couple steps to pace near the couch, “No, you _ don’t _ get it. Those things don’t just go away because I’m nice to  _ one _ person. Because I’m nice to you!”

He continues quickly, “That’s bullshit, you don’t  _ know _ me, you just haven’t gotten to see the shit I am capable of. If you did you’d be running away, screaming, cursing my name, and sending me away to the netherworld. Just like everybody else who ever got the chance to, like always, it’s the same shit. You humans don’t know anything anyway, and you obviously wouldn’t know a worthless sack of shit right in front of you even if it were about to hit you in the fac--” Suddenly he’s cut off in his rant by you jumping up from the couch and latching onto him.

You pull him against you roughly in a hug and mumble against the hoodie he’s still wearing from before, “Shut up, right now.”

He grumbles but fortunately he doesn’t move away from you just yet. You both stay together for a couple of long moments, with you hugging him tightly and him holding still and not moving to hug back. But at least he hasn’t pulled away and left like you feared he was on the brink of doing.

Finally you pull back and look up at him, “You aren’t  _ worthless _ , or a sack of anything. I don’t care who told you that, or how you want to try and justify it being true.” You say sternly.

He looks down at you hesitantly and then shrugs you off of him after that. He still seems upset but luckily he doesn’t actually protest, only slips away from you to stand nearby and sway from foot to foot.

"Also... I have seen, at least a little bit, of what you're capable of so far. Especially when I brought you to the office. And I mean, I _practically_ cheered you on, so... Maybe not all humans are identical, ya know?" You try quietly, in hopes that will help him realize what you mean.

He looks up at you for a second and then moves to sit back on the couch again, his hair which was previously a deep purple is starting to lighten a bit now. You join him tentatively and after a while you rest a hand on his thigh, not saying anything just yet, in case he has more to tell you still. 

It stays silent for a while until he finally looks over at you and holds your gaze, “So what do we do now?” He says quietly, looking drained.

You shrug, “I don’t know… are you still going to leave?” You ask him sadly.

He looks down and takes a breath he doesn’t need, “Do you want me to?”

You shake your head, “Maybe I didn’t make this 100% clear, but  _ no _ , I would like you to stay please.” You explain thoroughly.

He sighs, leaning back against the couch and slumping down. “I really don’t know how I always manage to ruin every good thing that happens.” He says mostly to himself.

You scoot in closer and keep your hand on him, “You haven’t ruined anything.”

He looks over at your face which isn’t too far from his, “I’ve never done this before.” He says suddenly, his tone shifting entirely.

You are about to ask him what he means but as you’re looking at him intently you realize what he’s trying to say, “Yeah.. I can kind of tell.” You admit.

He laughs a little, but it’s sort of hollow and empty, “Usually when people are interested in me it’s just for some shady favors or a quick fuck, nothing more than that.” He says, looking back up at the ceiling slowly.

You nod, “Sounds… rough.” You try, waiting for him to keep going.

“During stints in the netherworld where I would hang around there instead of coming back up top side to try and get free again I would fuck around with whoever I could for fun, and sure sometimes I would see someone more than once. But we wouldn’t.. Well, talk to each other much, or make it very personal. No casual hanging out, definitely no normal dating. Huggin’, cooking together, no cute shit like that, nothing like you humans do.” He explains after a while.

You lean against him, “So stuff like that makes you.. afraid?”

“I’m not afraid!” He says all too quickly, lifting his head up again and you spy the bloom of yellow on his side near his ear.

“Fine.. uncomfortable then.” You correct yourself, giving him a look.

He huffs, “Well… not exactly. I _ do _ like it, I just.. It feels like it’s not meant for me, ya know?” 

You let your hand hover over his arm before you decide to wrap around it and hold onto him again, “Well, what do you want to do then?” You ask.

“What do you mean?” He questions in return.

You look up at him, “Would you like to be together still? We... don’t have to call each other anything if you don’t want to.. I just, I want to know where we are.” You get out shakily, afraid of the answer.

He shifts back to sit up straighter, looking off at nothing like he’s thinking hard. Eventually he glances back over to you, “Do you actually still want to?” He asks slowly.

You smile finally, “Bug I promise, I  _ definitely _ do, and I will let you know in very clear and certain words if at any point I no longer do.”

He nods slowly at that, and you hold out a hand to him. He looks down at it and snickers as he sees you offering him an extended pinkie.

He takes it after a moment with his own and holds it, “That’s very immature of you.” He says and you look up to see that he’s suddenly got smooth combed down hair and a big fake mustache on like he’s trying to pretend to be an old-timey businessman.

A laugh takes you over as you two squeeze your little pinkie promise together and then let go, “Well you’re the one who’s  _ dating _ someone immature, so the joke's on you!” After a moment you realize what you said, and look to him before continuing, “Is that okay, can I say that?”

He puts his face back to normal and looks at you intently for a moment, hesitating, “Yeah I mean.. You’re my…  _ girl-friend _ , why wouldn’t you be able to say that?” You lean up and kiss him right on the lips so quickly he almost doesn’t finish the sentence.

You pull back after and smile at him, “You don’t have to call me that if you don’t want to by the way..”

He shrugs, “No it, uh.. it’s fine!” He tries.

You give him a knowing look, “You looked like you were gonna throw up or something just then.” 

He grumbles and darts his eyes away, “Don’t exaggerate. I just need to get used to it is all. Sounds weird coming out of my mouth.” He sticks his slightly pointed tongue out and pokes it for emphasis.

You smile warmly and detach from him briefly to stand up from the couch, then taking his hand again and guiding him up to his feet as well, “Hey, no rush okay? Whatever makes you happy.”

He sighs lightly in response and you check to see that his hair has just the faintest tint of pink in it now. You’re going to call that a success for sure, even if that conversation didn’t feel quite finished yet. You keep holding his hand tightly as you walk back to the bedroom, and before you even ask he flicks all the house’s lights off as you close the door behind the two of you. You climb into the bed moments later and look over to see him pop into the pajamas you gave him in an instant. You smile brightly even if he can’t see you in the dark because it does make you happy that he likes them and he’s willing to wear some cleaner clothes for you.

He climbs into the bed alongside you and scoots in, “Hey I have.. A couple requests, is that okay?”

You nod enthusiastically before realizing he probably can’t tell that you are doing that, “Yes! Yeah of course, this should be mutual and equal!”

He laughs nervously, “Okay okay..” He comes in closer and rests his head next to yours, then continues, “I don’t want to be showering constantly, the warm water was surprisingly nice but it’s too loud in there and I prefer being.. Myself.” He tries to articulate. 

You snake a hand around him and hum, “That’s okay! I am not asking you to be spotless constantly or anything, just like.. Preferably not  _ rancid _ ? And if you are really dead set on getting my sheets all messed up you’re gonna have to be the one to change them.” You say.

He snorts, “Alright that’s a deal.” Leaning in closer and talking against your hair.

You wait, feeling like he’s gonna say something else, and then after a bit he does, “Also I appreciate you trying to make sure people don’t realize I’m not alive, but you can ease up, I’m a professional remember?”

You nod against him, “Well I thought you were a professional at doing the exact opposite though?” You question.

He laughs and you smile at the sound, “Yeah that’s true, but still I’m a big boy, I got it.”

You hug him tighter to you and agree, “Alright, I can do that for you. Just remind me if I mess up.” Then after a moment, “Anything else?”

He hesitates for a while before speaking up again, but much quieter this time, “Keep being patient with me… I know I complained but--”

You cut him off by coming up to kiss him softly, bumping your nose against his and inhaling the smell of dust from all around him thanks to the attic next door. It’s actually kind of pleasant, like being in a place you remember fondly from a long time ago. Definitely a happy middle ground between the bad smell that used to linger on him and the over the top flowery scent he got after bathing for the first time.

You pull back slowly, “Don’t worry, I will be.”

He hums in response and pulls you back in to hug you against him tighter. You sigh happily against him and grip the shirt you gave him. You’re just so relieved to have cleared this up between you two, you knew you weren’t wrong about him seeming off all day, and now you know it’s just because he was overwhelmed to actually be in a real relationship for once. Something like that never even occurred to you before, but it makes total sense. Being a demon, and a cursed one at that, definitely doesn’t lend itself well to this whole thing. It’s probably a uniquely human experience to most beings in the afterlife. You’re glad it’s been able to go this decently so far despite the hiccups and you’re determined to keep it going as well.

Suddenly you slip your hand down from his side and sit up on your elbow, “Hey, could you roll over?” You ask him in the dark.

“Oh.. okay, why?” He asks in confusion, starting to turn over anyway as he talks.

You pull the black fluffy blanket up onto the both of you, even though it would usually be too warm for you, but you figure the coldness of his body will even it out. After he finishing moving you reposition your pillow as well and settle back in.

“Just this.” You say once you're done.  


You lay back down fully and scoot in closer, wrapping your arm around him again now that he’s facing the other way. It’s a little difficult because he’s wider than you and has a round belly, but you hold on snugly anyway and lean your face forward to smush against his back in a hug.

“Are you... making me the little spoon?” He says quietly.

You nod against him and smile, “Yes, that was my evil plan all along.”

“I’m gonna lose it.” He whispers after a long pause.

You snicker to yourself and lean up to give him a light kiss on the back of the neck, “Goodnight! If you don’t feel like sleeping you can slip out later after I’m already asleep, whatever you wanna do.”

He hums contently and presses back against you slightly, “Nah darling, I’ll stay here…”

“I’ll stay..” He repeats again under his breath after a moment, barely above a whisper.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!  
> I have just a bit more stuff planned but I guess what I want to know from you guys, if you wanna leave a comment and let me know... are people interested in this getting a NSFW chapter as well? It's been rattling around in my brain but I don't want to make people uncomfortable if they didn't come to this story for that. Happy to make one though and the idea is there either way.. so who knows!
> 
> Oh also follow my Tumblr maybe? living-sol.tumblr.com/  
> I forgot to put that on here anywhere before now but I do my BJ stuff there and what-not. Free feel if you want to!
> 
> Have a great day <3


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